There's No App for Burden Bearing

Let's turn to God's word together. We're gonna read today from Galatians chapter five. I did not put the full text in the bulletin because I changed it this morning. So it is Galatians 5:22 through 6:5, and it's our habit to read God's word aloud together. So if you wanna find that on the screen behind me, you can do so. You can also find it in the Bibles that are in the pew. I think it's on page 1,006.

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. The law is not against such things. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won't be tempted. Carry one another's burdens. In this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Let each person examine his own work, then he can take pride in himself alone and not compare himself with someone else, for each person will have to carry his own load. — Galatians 5:22–6:5

This is the word of the lord. Thanks be to God.

I read a book several years ago by Tim O'Brien called The Things They Carried, which is a book about the experience of soldiers in Vietnam. It's super well written. And it describes, of course, the physical things that soldiers carried in Vietnam—the rucksack, the weapons, the fatigue. And yet, he's most poetic talking about the other burdens that they carried.

He said, "They all carried all they could bear and then some, including a silent awe, awe for the power of the things they carried." But then he points out other burdens. He said they carried the sky, the whole atmosphere. They carried it, the humidity, the monsoon rains, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it. They carried the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity. They had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.

It's talking about the burdens that these soldiers took with them that were invisible, that don't neatly fit in a knapsack.

The Series: "There's No App for That"

We're in a series this morning called "There's No App for That." It's sort of a play on the idea that there are all these one-anothering statements in the New Testament. I'm doing this for this summer for a reason. This is a good time when people are in and out for us not to go sequentially through a book, but to look at all the passages that are in the epistles—all the letters. They all follow the same pattern. There's a greeting part, then there's a long section on deep theology. And then there's the word "therefore," which is kind of the hinge in each of the letters in the New Testament. After that come these commands about how we live out practical love for one another—all the one-anothering phrases. There are 59 of these. I could do this for more than a year. Maybe I will. No, I won't.

But we're looking through these because we're asking the Lord over the summer: Lord, what kind of church do you want us to be together? What kind of church?

An Interactive Exercise

Before I launch into the sermon, I have an exercise for you. If you will look in front of you in the pew racks, there are index cards and golf pencils. I need everybody to do this. This may be a complete flop of a sermon exercise, but just hang with me. It's June, so you're fine.

I would like for you to take a moment, and I want you to think of three to five burdens that you're carrying right now. You, your household—maybe it's your roommates together, maybe it's your family. But three to five burdens.

Now, truth be told, don't put your name on this. In a few moments, we're gonna collect them and they will be redistributed. You'll walk home with someone else's anonymous card with three to five things on there, and we're gonna ask you to pray for them at the end of the service. We're not reading these aloud. We're not gonna shame anybody. But I do wanna ask you if you will take a moment: three to five burdens that you are carrying right now.

I notice that people in the balcony are much faster at this than you on the floor. I don't know why that is.

A couple of people here in a second will come with baskets and pick those up down here, and you have the balcony to come and collect those. And then in a few moments, they're gonna redistribute them. If you filled out a card, once those are redistributed, please make sure you get a card.

So today, the sermon is "There is No App for Burden Bearing." Here's my outline for this morning. Two things. Two points only: Fit Check and Bag Check.

Fit Check

What is a fit check? I had to ask for help with this. We recently have now three daughters-in-law, and I've noticed them doing this. The fit check is the glance in the mirror on the way out the door, which is checking the hair and just looking yourself over. It's a fit check.

Now I don't want to be sexist about this. I also have one son in particular who cannot resist a mirror and is always doing this, checking out the veins in his arm. So this is an equal opportunity offender sermon here.

The fit check is "How do I look?" And we're looking in this passage at a way that gives us a spiritual fit check. I know, a little weird. But this passage, we started off reading what are known as the fruit of the spirit: Love and joy and peace and patience and kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are qualities that the spirit grows and produces in the life of a Christian over time. Wrought by the spirit. They're not talents. They're things the spirit produces in us supernaturally.

But I want you to notice something about that list. It includes lots of things that can't be grown alone. You can't grow in becoming a person who's loving by yourself. You can't become a person who's about peace when you are in isolation. A person of patience—you can't become more kind alone in your room.

A lot of times I think people have an idea that they can become a more spiritual person if they're withdrawn from others, if they're on retreat, if they're by themselves, up in the mountains or at the beach, away from other people. Then they can grow in becoming a more spiritual person. That's a common phrase today. But the Bible shows us here that much of what it means to be a spiritual person can only be grown in relationships, in close relationship with other Christians, in a church. Many of these qualities.

So Paul calls us to a fit check—like checking out how am I doing on the inside, growing in these qualities. Notice verses 24 to 26:

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. — Galatians 5:24-26

Here's what he's saying: Crucified desires, keeping in step with the spirit, not provoking one another, not envying another. This is the fit check for what it means to be a Christian. Before you approach other people with their burdens, with their sins, with the things they are carrying—check yourself. Look in the mirror. Am I becoming a person of patience, kindness?

Here's what's natural to our relationships: Competition, comparison, measuring yourself by one another. We have six sons, and it's hard to grow up in a family of six kids. One phrase that came out very early on was this: "Look at me compared to you." This developed over years in the Bradford household, and it applies to everything. I'm eating my dinner faster than you—look at me compared to you. My prowess with video games—look at me compared to you. My prowess with sports games—look at me compared to you. In every area, I mean, six boys are vastly competitive, and it's always "Look at me compared to you." LEGO building abilities, abilities in music. I could keep going on the list: look at me compared to you.

And comparison gives birth to two things: pride on the one hand, insecurity on the other. Pride that says "I don't need anybody." Insecurity, which is "I need everybody to like me." And both of those get in the way of bearing one another's burdens.

But the gospel fit check produces in us, or needs to produce in us, a type of humility. And it works this way: Any person who rightly understands how God relates to us cannot hold on to a sense of pride with one another. Can't do "look at me compared to you."

Let me give you this kind of horrible example. So it's summertime. Some of you will go to the beach. Let's imagine I take three friends to the Outer Banks. One of them is a novice swimmer, has just had their first swim lesson. One of my friends I bring with me was a high school swim champion, and the third one is an Olympic hopeful for swimming—long distance swimming. And I'm like, "Hey, we're gonna have a little competition at the beach. It's gonna be really fun."

We're gonna go to Bermuda. Who can get to Bermuda the fastest? So all three of them wade out into the water, and they begin swimming. And now it's 600 miles from Hatteras, I checked, to Bermuda. Okay. So they all get in the water and one of them makes it 50 yards, the brand new swimmer, before drowning. I know. Terrible illustration. Sorry. One of them makes it actually pretty well—makes seven miles. The high school champion makes it seven miles out before he drowns. The Olympic hopeful, she makes it 150 miles before she drowns. Now which of them won? Nobody won.

The humans are so ridiculous. We think about God's standard. Be holy as I am holy. Be perfect as I am perfect. God's standard is so great that any sense of competition, of being better than other people, any sense of look at me compared to you is flatly ridiculous.

See the gospel rightly, when understood, brings out this humility in us. It doesn't matter if you're an Olympic hopeful or a novice swimmer. Nobody's making it on the standard of God's perfection. All of it is of grace.

And this is why routinely we remind our congregation that there are three ways you can describe every person who's a Christian. They are simultaneously a sinner and a sufferer and a saint. A sinner, they continue to sin. Sufferer, they live in a fallen world. And saint, yes, they are called in Christ beloved by God. That's how all of us are.

So when you find someone describing this passage who's overtaken in wrongdoing, who's struggling, dealing with heavy burdens, maybe of their own fault that they did—this is our flesh does two things with this. We either want to have superiority or move toward avoidance. You know, superiority: I can't believe you did that. I would never do that. Or avoidance: look at me compared to you. Not my monkeys. Not my circus. I don't want anything to do with you.

But see, the gospel says no. The gospel calls us to move toward one another in our struggles, even in those that we caused ourselves by bad choices. To move toward one another in graciousness and humility. Because we know nothing that I have done is what I produced. The fruit of the spirit that's being grown with me is supernatural. It's not of me.

So the gospel gives us a different mantra. Maybe the old version is, "But for the grace of God, go I." The Bradford version of that is, "Look at me just like you. Look at me just like you." All of us are in a place of humility before the cross.

So you've heard me say this before. I'm gonna keep saying this over and over till we believe it: The church is not meant to be a museum of saints. It's meant to be a hospital for sinners. You go downtown to the science museum, you can see all kinds of taxidermied animals that look really pristine, set in perfect settings, but they're dead. The church isn't supposed to be a museum of taxidermy. It's a hospital of sinners, and it doesn't matter whether you're more sick than you think than I am or you're less sick. We're all sick. We all need the hospital, and God is such a gracious physician with sinners.

Bag Check: Understanding Two Types of Burdens

So that's the fit check. Bag check. For this one, I want you to think of airport check-in. Airport check-in—not maybe your favorite place, but when you go to RDU, you go to the counter, you take your bag, and you've gotta check it two ways. First, they have the little metal cage that's supposed to—you're supposed to be able to fit your carry-on into this. And if not, they won't let you take it on the plane. And then if it's too big for that, they take it over the counter and they weigh it. Because if it's over 50 pounds, they want to make some money off of you, right? They're gonna charge you extra for that one going on the plane. Why are they doing that? Well, the airline is exercising a discernment process about your bag. Because they have to balance where the weight is on the plane.

In the same way, the church has this discernment process about bags. That's what's laid out for us in this passage. We need to balance the bags, so we're gonna have a bag check too.

So if you were listening as we read this passage, it might be a little confusing to you because it sounds like Paul contradicts himself in verses two and five. We can put these up here on the screen. Listen to these two verses.

Bear one another's burdens. — Galatians 6:2

Each one will have to carry his own load. — Galatians 6:5

Now in English, those don't give us much information about the different kinds of bags. But if we're working at RDU, this is a helpful thing for us because it describes for us the two different words, and we'll put the words up here. Baros, verse two, and fortion, which is verse five. So Baros—this is an incredibly heavy burden. This is something beyond what any person in this room can carry. So for my illustration of this, I want you to think of a Dodge Ram pickup truck. Okay? If you don't know what a Dodge Ram looks like, think of just a big Ram. Okay? Large sheep.

So you can't carry this. Nobody can carry this. This is a baros—a heavy burden that no one can carry by themselves. And the call here is to help one another carry the Dodge Ram. It's gonna take a lot of us to pick up a Dodge Ram.

The other word in this passage though, at the end, is the word fortian—which is a light load. Let's think fanny pack because it starts with F. So yeah, fortian.

Now we need to think about how we handle those things. Let's start with baros—the Dodge Ram size burdens. What are those things? I'll describe it this way: anything that causes you to lose sleep and lose joy.

This is things like a diagnosis. This is anything like a job loss, a deep rift in a close relationship, uncertainty about finances, fear of the future, mental illness, loneliness, loss of a loved one, loss of a friend.

We need some Ted Lasso wisdom for this one. Here's Ted Lasso's version of what baros—heavy Dodge Ram—what that looks like together. Coach Lasso says this, and he's talking to a whole group of people:

"I want you to be grateful that you're going through this sad moment with all these other folks because I promise you there's something worse out there than being sad, and that is being sad alone. Ain't nobody in this room alone."

That's what it means to carry each other's burdens.

You know, I've been a pastor here for fifteen years. From 2011 to 2019, the flight path of our church looked like a jet engine just taken off from RDU. Just a nice linear climb. We kept going up in people and in money and everything was going great. And we hit 2020 like a lot of churches, and we hit COVID, and we moved twice, and we had lots of people move and change jobs, and the flight path went like this. For 2020 to 2024, it was kind of nuts.

And what's funny is since January 2025, we're back on the same trajectory. We're back on the jet climb. We're just moving up in people, moving up in money. Things are great again.

My biggest fear though, as your pastor, is that burdens get missed. And here's why: as we grow, it's possible for burdens to become invisible, unnoticed, unfelt. Or for us to think, somebody else has got that. You know, we got pastors. We've got officers in our church. We got great community group leaders. Somebody's got this.

You find out about a miscarriage. You find out about a marriage splitting up. You find out about somebody losing a parent. You find out about somebody with a rebellious kid. You find out somebody who's lost their job. And you think, surely, somebody else has got that one, right?

You know, there's a little nagging voice in your head that's like, "Hey, text them. Why don't you make that phone call? Drop off a meal." But there's something in you that's like, "You know, there's so many people here. Somebody's got that." And what happens is people fall through the cracks. Burdens don't get carried. Dodge Rams crush people.

And I just want to urge you as your pastor: if there's a little voice in your head, can you listen to it? If there's a little prompt—text, call, casserole—can you do that? It matters more than you know. It matters so, so much. This is a matter of critical importance. Emergency. Really, really matters.

Two Types of Loads

Of course, Paul has another word for us: fortian—which are fanny packs. Each person is called to carry their own load. And again, what's pictured for us here is not a crushing load. You can't put anything crushing in a fanny pack, I don't think. It's not gonna bear the weight.

So a fanny pack is a load that you can carry. And yet, you have to check the bag to discern, when you're with your friend, if you should help or not. That's what we're being called to: a certain kind of bag check.

Because taking over somebody's load when they should carry it for themselves—and it's not that heavy—is actually doing them a disservice. It's robbing them of dignity. It's saying, "You can't do it. You probably need me." And it's enabling them.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do with another person is saying, "I think you're okay. I think you got this. You're doing great." They need encouragement because not all burdens are Dodge Rams. Some are fanny packs.

A Bag Check for Your Heart

So I've got a bag check series of questions for you this morning. Four questions for you.

Number one: Are you slow to help others who are overburdened? Do you justify your withdrawal or a lack of action just because it doesn't seem like it matters? Are you slow?

This is what you need to hear: You are more needed than you think. You are more needed than you think.

Second question: Do you tend to unload all your problems on others, routinely expecting other people to carry a load for you? Maybe you need to acknowledge: I kinda need to get this one.

And here's what you need to hear: You're stronger than you think. You are stronger than you think. You got this.

Number three: Do you struggle to accept help from others?

Man, that is 95% of our congregation? That was supposed to be funny. Only one of you laughed. Right? Not funny, I guess. Are you too prideful to accept help? You're like, got this Dodge Ram you're trying to lift up. That's ridiculous. Here's what you need to hear. You're weaker than you think.

Number four, are you one of those people who carries on your back eight backpacks at a time, backpacks that belong to others when others around you aren't carrying even one? In other words, are you enabling others? Here's what you need to hear. You're not as important as you think, which helps us to remember that Jesus is the ultimate burden bearer. Christ has already carried the heaviest burden for you.

Last year, about this time, I got to visit the Garden Of Gethsemane, and it's on the Mount Of Olives. And you go there today and it's this really peaceful, beautiful place with ancient olive trees and there's a little church and it's quiet and meditative. But it was no such place for Jesus. Because when Jesus went to the Mount Of Olives, to the garden there, he was overwhelmed with the burden that God was telling him to carry. He was burdened, as Isaiah told us, with carrying our sorrows and our sins. And he goes to the garden, and he knows what's coming. And it's not a fanny pack burden, and it's not even a Dodge Ram burden. It's like an aircraft carrier to take on the sin of the world. And he's sweating like he's bleeding. And as he does so, he says, "Father, take this burden from me, but your will be done." And he goes to the cross.

And what we're told when Jesus calls us to follow him is he tells us something remarkable. He's carried the heaviest burden so that he turns to us and says, "Come and follow me for my yoke is easy. My burden is light." He's carried the heaviest thing for us so that we can carry one another. Let's redistribute those burdens.

Brothers and sisters, we don't need to prove ourselves. We don't need to outperform one another. We don't need to hide our weakness. We don't need to pretend we're not struggling with sin. We don't need to compare ourselves with one another. We don't need to pretend we don't need help, and we can offer help when other people do.

So as you get a card, I want you to look at what's on there. I want you to think about the things that are on there. This is the first step in bearing a burden this morning. I'm going to ask you to take this card home with you and pray for this person who you don't know. You've just got a list of burdens that you're going to pray for them and hold up before the Lord for this next week. Are you willing to do that? I know I didn't ask you that before, but are you willing to help me with that? To bear one another's burdens in this way?

So here's what we're going to do, and this could be a complete flop, but we're going to try it anyway. I'm going to give a list of the things that we carry. And when you get a card, I want you to hold up your hand if your card contains one of these things, and I want you to keep it up even if your card contains other things. So if it's on there, hold it up. If another thing comes up, just keep your hand up as you go along. Okay?

So let's put up this list for the things we carry. Here's what's going on this Sunday at CTK. The things we carry: Marriage. Anybody got that one on their card? Raise your hand. Health concerns? Anxiety, addiction, or depression? Aging parents? Finances, work, relationships with in-laws, doubts of faith and uncertainty. Holy cow, y'all. There's a lot of hands up. I think there are a lot of burdens in this church. I think there are a lot of things y'all are carrying. Can we help each other?

Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have taken the heaviest burden from us and call us to the work of carrying our own burdens and helping bear one another's. Lord, help us to be a church that loves to come alongside, strengthen weak knees and weak arms. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Let's respond to God's word in song together.