His Commands Are Not Burdensome

Introduction

Well, it’s it’s been a while, at least since last week, since I’ve told you about where I grew up. Every member here knows that I grew up in rural North Alabama. But I don’t think I’ve been able to convey to you just how rural my upbringing was. I don’t know that it is possible. You’d have to watch several episodes of the Waltons or Little House on the Prairie to understand just how country it was where I grew up. We had no cable TV. We had no internet because it hadn’t been invented yet. But even if it had been invented, it wouldn’t have been wired to our house. We had to get water from a well.

And it was a dirt and gravel road full of potholes. My earliest memories of growing up at church, the church building didn’t have running water. The baptistry consisted of a hole in the ground across the road in the woods.

Hopefully, pretty far beyond the baptistry in those woods. Very country. In fact, the Amish community that was just north of us in Tennessee thought we were pretty backwards. And that road that I told you about, like I said, was gravel and dirt and full of potholes and ruts, and most of my waking hours were spent on a bicycle. That was our entertainment. And I rode that bicycle miles upon miles. And I can remember as a child seeing both on television as well as when we would go to town and do shopping, see the city kids riding their fancy three and ten-speed bicycles with no hand. Well, I was as good as them, or so I thought.

Sometimes we get frustrated when we can’t do something, especially when we can’t do something that somebody else can do.

Can do, and they seem to make it look easy, and it seems to be a struggle for us. And that frustrated me that I could not ride my bicycle on that country dirt road with no hand when those city kids on that smooth asphalt could ride their bicycle easily with no hand. The apostle John, by inspiration there in 1 John chapter 5, tells us that the commandments of God, 1 John 5, verse 3, are not burdensome, they’re not grievous, your translation may say. God’s commandments, taken in their entirety as a whole, are not too much for you to handle, for you to bear.

In fact, I can go to scripture that seems to back that up. Scripture, words from our Lord Himself. Did not Jesus tell us on the Sermon on the Mount that of those two paths, that the one path of following his commandments was going to be straight and narrow and difficult, so much so that few people would take and fully execute that path. And did not that same Lord say, before you engage on that path of following my commandments and signing up for this Christianity, that you better stop and count the cost. That you’re able to complete this task.

That it’s it’s going to be difficult. But then here comes the apostle saying his commandments are not burdensome, not too heavy of a weight.

1. A Different Perspective

Maybe there’s the difference. And so let’s talk about that puzzling concept, if we’re honest, of John saying, or the Holy Spirit saying through the pen of John, these commandments are not burdensome. Well, let’s just ask the obvious question. Why aren’t they? Why aren’t they burdensome? What scenario, what situation, what characteristics or qualities do I need to have or incorporate into my life that might make it such that they’re not burdensome, because that’s what I want. Well, first of all, they are not burdensome, or they become less burdensome if we have a different perspective. It’s how we view them. Look with me at 1 Corinthians. Hold your finger there in 1 John 5, if you’re still there from our Bible reading, and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

Perspective is so important. What we look at and how we look at things determines so much about our lives.

Is talking about the conveyance, the mechanism really of revelation of how he received the spiritual message from God and how he is conveying it to his audience. And in the midst of that, he says this. First Corinthians 2, let’s just pick up in verse 10. But God has revealed them, that is the thoughts and the ideas of the mind of God to us through his spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him, even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things which have been freely given to us by God, these things we also speak not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Now notice beginning in verse 14. But the natural man, now let’s pause there, the natural man is the carnal, your translation may say, the carnal, the worldly, the man who’s not attuned to spiritual things. The man whose perspective and concept is just upon earthly things. The natural man, he says, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things. Yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have, we have the mind of Christ.

These commandments that can be difficult, that can be demanding, that can be challenging become far less so if we have the proper perspective. The spiritual perspective. If we see the need and the importance of those.

You know, it’s out of context. Surgery is just weird, isn’t it? That you’re going to volunteer. Nobody kidnaps you. Nobody forces you. You volunteer. You showed up willingly to this building and walked in yourself and said, cut me open. Cut me open. Fidget around in there. Take some stuff out. Maybe put some other stuff in, sew me up, and let me hurt for several days. And not only did you volunteer for that, you paid them to do that to you. If you think about it, that’s just we why would you do that? Well, the perspective, the perspective is I had some cancer in there. And the perspective was that the doctor said that that cancer was going to eat away at my body and kill me, but we could take it out.

2. Our Affection Is Different

Or the doctor said, My heart’s not functioning properly. If we can open you up, it’s gonna hurt. And we can fix some things or replace some things and do some things, then you can live many more years. Then I’ll say, okay, sign me up. It’s all about perspective, isn’t it? Our perspective changes. And we’re willing to undergo tasks that might otherwise not only be difficult, challenging, but unthinkable. Because we have not just the spiritual discernment, we have the mind of Christ. Another thing that is different, and this is more to our context, and in fact, go back to 1 John 5 with me if you would. That not only is our perspective different, but our affection is different. And that changes everything. John would tell us about that.

In fact, that’s the whole context, not just of these few verses, not just of this chapter, but of this whole book. By this, verse 2 of 1 John 5, we know that we love the children of God when we love God. Keep his commandments. For this is the love of God. That we keep his commandments.

And his commandments are not burdensome. You see, that sentence, his commandments are not burdensome, was not written in a vacuum. Not written on a billboard or on a bumper sticker. It was written in the context of our love for God. I think of that and I think of the old story that prompted the very famous saying, He ain’t heavy.

And if you’re raising a child right now, you might want to cover your ears for this just for the next few seconds, is about 240,000. Having raised two kids, I think that number’s a little low.

That’s what it costs. And every gray haired person here today says, I’d pay that again to get him out of the house. But that’s a lot of money. $240,000. There’s not a one of you that I would write a check. Well, If it’s only going to cost me $14.95. That’s what it cost to bounce a check at my bank. But I’m not going to give any of you $240,000. But I gave that to my children. Why? I love them. And I’d do it again without a coupon. Because love changes everything. And John says his commandments are not burdensome. John was not delirious when he wrote those words. He’s not saying, oh, it’s easy. God’s not ever going to ask you to sacrifice anything, to make any tough choices, to resist any difficult temptations.

He’s saying this is the love that we have for God. If we love him, his commandments are not burdens.

3. My Treatment of Others

That he probably needed two things. Not necessarily in this order. He probably needed a better bike. But he also needed a better street to write on. And if I want to make this better, then I need a better perspective. And I need to love God more. And so let’s make some practical applications of that. What do I do with that? Well, first of all, the first practical application comes in my treatment of others. Not everybody has that perspective. Not everybody shares that affection that I’m trying to have toward God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and his children. Well, maybe I need to be patient with them. Sometimes we come across as smug and arrogant and holier than thou to non-Christians because of our intolerance and impatience that they don’t have the perspective and the affection that we have.

And guess what? They’re not going to.

Have been discouraged and maybe even crushed when mature Christians make demands of them that God would not make, that they have it all figured out, and that they have this perspective thing and this affection thing all lined up, maybe as a mature Christian, as better ordered in their life. When again, what we need to be doing is helping them to grow to that. Go back.

That the natural man could not receive the spiritual things of God, but the spiritual man could.

4. The Next Application Is About Me

Verse 2 of chapter 3, I fed you with milk and not with solid food. For until now, you were not able to receive it. And even now you’re still not able, for you are still carnal. Now, Paul is saying, hey, it’s time, it’s past time. You need to be spiritual and not carnal. You need to do some growing up. But he didn’t try to force feed them meat when all they could handle was milk. He said, You need a better perspective. And to help you get that, here’s some milk to help you grow in that. The next spiritual application is about me. What if I look into the mirror? And I say, but they are.

And whether I’m going to get up and go to church today, what do I do? If I can’t agree with John, and his commandments are burdensome to me. Well, I need to work on my perspective. Maybe it’s not time for the meat. But that doesn’t mean that I neglect the milk of God’s word. That I am pouring myself into his word as his word is being poured into me as I grow in my understanding and in my spiritual maturity. And I try to change that perspective. I try to see things from that spiritual vantage point. And secondly, and maybe primarily, I’m going to try to love God more. Because that’ll change everything.

Not because I’m cramming for some test.

Play Bible trivia. But because God’s in here, the more I know about him, what he’s done, is doing, has promised to do, I’m sure the more I’m going to love him, and the lighter he’ll become. And so I read, I study, and I pray so that I can get there where John was.

Conclusion

And I love him so much that his commandments are not burdensome. Would you count that cost? Would you make that step today to be one of his disciples? Knowing that it’s a process, that it’s a growth, that you will shed more and more of that carnal, worldly, natural thing as you grow spiritually, changing your perspective, as you lose more and more of your love of worldly things and of self, and grow in your love for God. And if you do it right and let God work in you and through you, you’ll find that every day it gets a little lighter and a little easier. And God in heaven gets a little closer. We help you this morning to grow in your perspective and in your affection and in your relationship to God.

Can we do that as together we stand and as we sing?