This sermon emphasizes the invitation of Jesus to come to Him with our burdens and find rest, illustrating the need to cast our cares, sins, and distractions upon Him. It highlights the importance of releasing the weights we carry, both physical and spiritual, and surrendering them to Jesus to experience His light yoke and easy burden. The message encourages letting go of worldly distractions and vices to find true nourishment and rest in Christ.

Matthew 11, 28, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. Cast your cares upon Me. Cast your cares upon Me. My yoke, a yoke was something that would go around an oxen, and they would pull the load behind them, this yoke, so you have this image of this huge yoke and this burden, and this heavy burden. Jesus says My yoke is light. My burden is heavy. But here's what we do. I'm going to give you a little analogy. Maybe it will help. Oh my goodness. Do you ever carry one of these around? Huh? 30 pounds of nothing but junk. I actually sometimes use this when I'm jogging to get ready and then to take it off and go, the burden's been lifted. I feel much better. But this is the image where it's just heavy, and we walk around like this, don't we? With extra, with this burden. And we're just, I can't get, what is going on? I'm so, I can't get to the prayer meeting. I don't want to worship. It's pretty hard to worship like this. I don't even want to go to church. I think that's why the majority of people now go to church once a month. Did you know that? Recent statistics are showing church attendance at once a month or twice a month. The burden, he says, don't carry this burden. So we look at this and we go, okay, what is in here? What is going on? First I got to find the zipper. And here's exactly what the Bible says. Remove every, what, what, what? Come on, you guys know this one. Remove every, oh, these weights are hard to get in here. Remove every weight. How'd this get in here? This is all, what the Bible says, remove every weight and sin that so easily ensnares. There's weights, there's things you're carrying around. You don't need to be carrying around. You're just carrying around. You don't need to. Jesus said, put it, oh, that's heavy. Put it down. Don't care, what about the sin that so easily ensnares us? I got sin in here too, right? I was thinking of getting a 24 ounce of Coors, but that probably wouldn't look good. Right, okay. Because some of you, knowing me, I get pulled over and say, what is this? I'm on my way to church. I bet you are. I bet you are. Right, so we carry, but we carry around. Not only, we still have the thing we shouldn't be carrying. You know what it is, right? God says, release that. I say, I don't want to release it. That's my burden, and I like this burden. And release the sin that so easily ensnares. So now we're walking around with things we shouldn't be walking around with. We're burdened. Jesus says, cast these things upon Me. Give those to Me. See, it's getting a little bit lighter, but there's still stuff in here. Oh, isn't this good? Isn't this good? No, that's the water of the world. Jesus says, come unto Me and drink of the water where you will never thirst again. So we carry around the things of the world and drink and drink and drink and consume. And Jesus says, get rid of that burden. Get rid of that. Come to Me, the fountain of living water, and I will give you rest. Stop trying to find nourishment in things that will never nourish. Put it aside. Now, I'm not... This is what we call our one little vice. Right? Do you have that one... God, Lord, not that. I mean, you know the sanctification process, right? When you give your heart to the Lord, He starts cleaning out junk. Man, stuff has got to go. My favorite movie, Tombstone. Now I'm even convicted sometimes. Or Lonesome Dove. You know, these aren't quite edifying. Lord, I like this music. I like this music. George Strait, George Jones, Conway Twitty. Can I put in some Alan Jackson? And it might be good for some people, but I'm telling you, that makes me want to grab a 12-pack of Coors and jump on a train. And just sit there and be depressed all day. And now that, now I've got to find a godly woman. A godly wife. Yes, now I can't buy this and buy that. No, and begin to strip away those things. But then we said, this one little vice. Right? For some, it's this. For some, it's that. For some, it's 500 milligrams of caffeine, Starbucks. Woo-hoo! This is called the rock for a reason. But you put in there what you want. Right? For some, it's something else. So we have the weight, we have the burden, we have the one little vice, and it is a sin, one little vice. But we carry these things, and it gets heavy, and it gets heavy, and it gets heavier. Now, what about this one? You might say, well, Shane, that's not heavy at all. What's wrong with that? Yeah, what's wrong with that? Well, let me tell you what's wrong with that. I'm trying to get through my day, right? I've got this on. God's want me to carry my little load, seeking Him, like, what is that? Uh-huh, okay. All right, back on track. Yeah. Yeah, okay, that's good. Here we go. Ring, ring. What? Oh, what is that on Facebook? Nobody commented or liked my post. No, that's not funny. That's sad. No, okay. I'm done this time, God. I'm putting it on vibrate if I need to. Are you walking? Zzz, zzz, zzz. And it says, see, but that's what it represents. 20 times a day, right? And no wonder we're burdened. We've got all this stimuli that we shouldn't be entering our mind. These things have to be controlled, not them controlling you. Watch how much they control you. You gotta pull over and check it, wherever you are. I mean, I'm scared now to drive, I'll just be honest with you. I've had people drive past me on the freeway, both like this on their steering wheels. I'm like, what is this? They're just flying by on their phones. How are you going 70 and not looking what's ahead of you? And our children now, mom, dad, get off of those things. See, see, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, but you have to remove the things that keep causing those distractions.