8-19-2017        Lean on Me

          

Matthew 11:28-30

Come to Me, you who are heavily burdened by your labors and I will give you rest.

Take My yoke upon you and learn about Me for I am meek and humble and you shall find rest for your souls.

My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

As you read these lyrics, think on our relationship with Jesus.

Lean on Me

Written by Bill Withers • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group

Sometimes in our lives we all have pain                                                                                              

We all have sorrow                                                                                                                             

But if we are wise                                                                                                                                

We know that there's always tomorrow (1 Corinth. 10:13)

Lean on me, when you're not strong                                                                                                  

And I'll be your friend                                                                                                                               I'll help you carry on                                                                                                                            

For it won't be long                                                                                                                              

'Til I'm gonna need                                                                                                                  

Somebody to lean on (Matt. 11:28-30)

Please swallow your pride                                                                                                                    

If I have faith you need to borrow                                                                                                          

 For no one can fill those of your needs                                                                                                

That you won't let show (James 4:10, Mark 11:24)

You just call on me brother, when you need a hand                                                                            

We all need somebody to lean on                                                                                                            

I just might have a problem that you'll understand                                                                             

We all need somebody to lean on (Matt. 7:7-8)

Lean on me, when you're not strong                                                                                                  

And I'll be your friend                                                                                                                               I'll help you carry on                                                                                                                         

For it won't be long                                                                                                                              

'Til I'm gonna need                                                                                                                   

Somebody to lean on (2 Corinth. 12:9-10)

You just call on me brother, when you need a hand                                                                           

We all need somebody to lean on                                                                                                            

I just might have a problem that you'll understand                                                                              

We all need somebody to lean on (Matt. 28:20)

If there is a load you have to bear                                                                                                      

That you can't carry                                                                                                                                   I'm right up the road                                                                                                                                  I'll share your load (Matt. 11:28-30)

If you just call me (call me)                                                                                                                     

If you need a friend (call me) call me uh huh(call me) if you need a friend (call me) ...                       

Matthew 11:28-30                  Our base verse today.  Take Jesus’ yoke upon us and He will help us carry our burdens. 

If we remember the poem “Footprints in the sand” we learn that we aren’t out there alone but when we are weak, Jesus carries us.  That’s why our burden becomes so light.  It isn’t ours to carry - alone.

1 Corinth. 10:13                      We aren’t tempted today by anything that hasn’t been true since the beginning of time.  There is nothing man has not faced before. 

So instead of crying like Israel in Ezekiel 37:11, we should focus on Jesus because we are more than conquerors in Him (Phil. 4:13). 

James 4:10, Mark 11:24         When we humble ourselves before God, He will lift us up and when we pray, we believe that we receive them and we shall have them. 

Where there is no faith, even Jesus has a hard time doing things in Nzareth (Matt.14:58).  So as we believe, receive.

Matt. 7:7-8                              When we ask of God, He will give it to us.  When we look for answers from God, He will show them to us.  When we need doors to be opened, God will say “Here, this one.”. 

When God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31)

2 Corinth. 12:9-10                   When I am weak, Jesus becomes my strength. 

Check out “Footprints” again (if we need a reminder).  Remember, Paul cherished his weaknesses for then he was strong, in Christ Jesus (2 Corinth. 12:10)

Matt. 27:31-33                        And after they had scourged and mocked Jesus, they took Him out to go to the cross and they compelled a man from Cyrene, Simon, to help Jesus with that cross. 

Remember, Jesus had been in prayer much of the night after the “Last Supper” with His disciples.  He was arrested, beaten and taunted through much of the early hours of the morning.  The bible doesn’t say how many lashes Jesus received in the scourging, but thirty-nine was considered the death penalty so up to and including thirty-eight would have ‘been in order’.  Those whips usually had three leads on them (sometimes up to nine) with bone or metal chips tied into the leads.  Adding in the fact that Jesus carried the burden that He knew what was going to happen even before they arrested Him, he was drained, physically and emotionally (in the natural) by the time they took him to Calvary.  And our Lord and Savior relied on a ‘mere’ man to help Him in His burden (the cross) in the natural.  SO, why should we refuse help from our brothers and sisters in Christ? 

Matt. 28:20                             and I know that my Lord Jesus is with me, until the end of the world. 

No matter what I go through, Jesus is with me.  No matter what I feel, He comforts me because through Christ He has been there (2 Corinth. 1:3-5).  And don’t forget, Jesus was also tempted after John baptized Him.  His natural needs, His spiritual needs and His relationship with the Father (Luke 4:1-13) were all challenged by the enemy.

Psalms 91:15                           God is with me when I call upon Him and He delivers me out of my troubles. 

‘Nuff said?  All I have to do is believe that it is true.

So why have we mentioned this song, “Lean ON Me”?  

God is preparing His children and He is encouraging us to be steadfast and true. Jesus is preparing his bride.  He wants us to be like the five wise virgins, continually ready for His return (Matt. 25:1-13).  So when the call does come, we don’t find ourselves saying somethings like “Oh!  (expletive), Here comes the Lord!”  But rather we might say “Come, Lord Jesus.  Take me, I’m ready.”  We know our eternal destination because we live for Him.

Look at what is happening with the New Testament church today.  Pastors are failing because they have been caught in their sin.  They have refused to acknowledge it and repent.  Things which are abominable to the Lord are now being ordained to run His church.  The church has become comfortable desiring not to ‘rock the boat’ rather than to preach and practice what the bible says.  We need to stand firm in our faith and not be shaken or discouraged by what we see going on around us for before the ‘son of perdition’ is revealed, even the church will slip away from its roots (2 Thess. 2:1-3).  We are founded in the truth so let’s not forget that and abide in Jesus to retain that truth in our hearts to attain the promise of eternal life (1 John 2:21-26).

God tells Jeremiah “I will utter My judgments against them concerning all their wickedness, those who have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, who have worshipped the works of their own hands”  (Jeremiah 1:16).  In the passage, God is speaking of Israel, but it applies to today, just as well.

The wrath of God is upon the world for its refusal to believe that He is.  And in denying His existence, how could they possibly accept Him.  As a whole,  Israel still refuses to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah.  And His anger is upon the New Testament church (too big a chunk) because we continue to quench and thereby grieve the Holy Ghost because we deny that He can and will operate like He says.  In short, God’s wrath is upon planet earth because of disobedience.  Varying forms, varying degrees with varying manifestations, but nonetheless, disobedience.  And, Hey, what got Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden (Gen 3:17, 24).

BUT, take heart, for God has been working with those dry, bleached bones of today’s church.  He has been reassembling, realigning those disarrayed, dried bones and placing them in their proper places, proper alignment.  Leg bone to leg bone, arm bone to arm bone and so forth.

He has been reconnecting those bones together with sinew and tendons so they don’t scatter again, but remain in proper alignment.

He has covered those bones and sinews with muscle so they can once again function as He intended His church to function.  Go back and read the gospels again.  What authority did Jesus give His disciples?  Heal the sick and cast out devils (Matt. 10:1-8, Luke 10:1-9).

And He has covered it all with skin so the church can look like what it is supposed to look like.

And the church cries “Our bones are dried and disjointed.  Our hope is lost” (Ezek. 37:11).  Largely because we have failed to follow our Lord’s lead.

But God has opened and brought the church up out of its grave and is breathing His Holy Spirit afresh, anew, into His church so we can live and know, beyond any shadow of doubt that God is the ONLYI TRUE and LIVING God and we ae His people.  And we recognize the work God has done in our lives. (Ezekiel 37:1-14).  We are desiring to serve God because we are coming to know God.  Not just in concept.  Not just in word.  But because Father is building a relationship with His us.

So, when adversity strikes, when we have failed to do our part, how do we overcome and allow our Heavenly Father to stand us back up on our own two feet?

We take upon us the yoke of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and wear it for He can sustain us.  It is Father who empowers us through Jesus Christ, our Lord because the His Holy Ghost resides within us.  so as we rely on the Holy Ghost to lead us, we are allowing Jesus to carry us through the sands of life. 

Taking up the yoke of Jesus and as soon as we slip it upon our neck and shoulders, we yield ourselves to Him.  We start giving every aspect of our lives over to Him as we continually grow closer and closer to the Father through Him.  And we translate, more and more, into the image of our Lord, Jesus Christ (2 Corinth. 3:18).

We confess and repent any failures and/or iniquities in our lives, then setting them behind us (as God does, Isaiah 38:17)), we forget them and press forward towards the mark, our salvation and our heavenly calling (Phil. 3:14).

We learn God’s statutes and ways (God is love, 1 John 4:8) so we can know as to what we are being obedient and then do our best to not stray or wander again (1 Corinth. 16:13).  Remember, we have the Holy Ghost in us, helping us (John 14:16-18).

Overcoming our faults, adversity, is once we recognize them by acknowledging that we have failed; repenting and renouncing our willful part in the sin; giving them to Jesus and leaving them at the foot of the cross allowing His precious blood to cover all our iniquities, forever; determining not to fall into that trap again by continuing on that straight and narrow path to eternal redemption (Matt. 7:14) and then continuing to fellowship with the Father through His Son because He has given us His Holy Spirit to guide us (John 16:13, 1 John 3:24).

To lean on Jesus is not just to trust in Him, but to yield ourselves to Him completely.  We need to understand who we are.  We need to understand that we ae unclean in speech and thought when we stand before the Lord and need purging of those impure things from our lives. The angel touched Isaiah’s lips with the live coal from the altar and purged away his sin (Isaiah 6:5-7).  However, even though we have confessed and received forgiveness for our sins, we may still need total purging for remnants may still reside deep down inside our hearts or perhaps we reopened doors because our flesh has yet sinned (Romans 7:1-25) to revive, those demons in our lives.  We may need, again, that complete purging by the coals from the altar of God brought by His Angel, purifying us so we can serve our heavenly Father with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul and all our strength (Mark 12:30). 

To the glory of God, our Father, through His Son, Jesus Christ because the Holy Ghost dwells AND is alive and well within us.  Therefore we praise Father with all that we are and all that we have (Psalms150:1-6) and magnify and glorify Him for His sovereign majesty (Psalms 69:30).

As Christians, we have someone whom we can trust, explicitly. Who will always be there for us and will not waiver.  He said that He would never leave us nor forsake us, even unto the end of the world (Heb. 13:5 & Matt. 28:20).  Jesus is upon whom we can lean and be safe and secure.  When we fail, He is there to guide us in making things right, once again.

Amen