Leadings And Burdens: Your Burdens Are A Compass by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Two Kinds of Burden

Galatians 6:2 — Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:5 — For each one shall bear his own load.

These two verses use two different Greek words. The word in verse 2 is baros — heavy, overwhelming weight, something too much for one person to carry. The word in verse 5 is phortion — personal responsibility, assigned duty.

Every blessing of God comes with a phortion — a responsibility attached to it. A paycheck requires a job. A child requires attention and provision. A calling requires prayer. If blessing is delayed, it is often because a person has not yet grown into the capacity for the burden attached to their blessing. God told Israel he was not taking them through the Philistines because they would faint when they saw war — their capacity had not yet matched the burden of the promise. He said to his disciples, "I have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now."

What delays blessing is that people have not grown in capacity for the burden attached to their blessing.

The baros is different. That is a holy weight God himself places on a person's heart — something too heavy to carry alone, something that refuses to let them rest until they have obeyed his will.

The Hand of God

Psalm 32:3–4 — When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me.

1 Peter 5:6 — Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.

That heavy hand described in Psalm 32 and the mighty hand in 1 Peter are the same thing. When the hand of God comes upon a person, there is weight — there are cares, sleeplessness, unrest, a sense of pressure. The natural response to spiritual dryness is to work harder, do more, push further. But that response is the works mindset. When the hand of God is pressing, the invitation is to come and receive, not to perform.

Psalm 32:7–8 shows what that season is for: "You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall surround me with songs of deliverance." One prescription in that season is singing — because what is being experienced is barrenness, and praise breaks it open. Then: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eyes."

The burden is an invitation for correction and teaching. The hand came upon you because you were moving in the wrong direction — and God is drawing you back toward his purpose.

Burden as God's Vocabulary

Most of the people in scripture who carried transforming burdens were not given explicit commands to act. The burden came first — and the burden was the communication.

• Nehemiah heard about the broken walls of Jerusalem and felt a leanness in his soul. God did not audibly say "go and build." The burden was the call.
• Moses was a prince in Egypt with nothing materially to gain, yet he preferred the wilderness over the palace. The Bible says he considered the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. That was not ambition. It was burden.
• Esther had the burden to intervene for her people — at personal risk, without a divine command to act.
• Hannah had a burden for a child and for Israel's future.
• Daniel prayed for Israel's restoration not because God told him to, but because the burden was upon him.

Each of these had the burden long before they had clarity. Each could have argued themselves out of it by logic: Nehemiah had a good job. Moses was a prince. Daniel was prime minister. The comfortable position was available to all of them.

Don't say God is not speaking if you have a burden. Burden is part of God's vocabulary.

Your Burden Is Your Compass — Not Your Area of Strength

Acts 9:15 — The Lord said to Ananias concerning Paul: "He is a chosen vessel to me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake."

The scope of Paul's assignment from the beginning was: Gentiles, kings, and the Jews.

Now trace what happened every time Paul went to the Jews:

• Acts 9:29 — He disputed with the Hellenists. They attempted to kill him.
• Acts 13:45 — The Jews were filled with envy and contradicted and blasphemed what he said.
• Acts 13:50 — They stirred up devout women and chief men and expelled Paul and Barnabas from the region.
• Acts 14:2 — The unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds.
• Acts 17:5 — The Jews gathered a mob and attacked the house where Christians were staying.
• Acts 18:6 — When they opposed and blasphemed, Paul shook his garments and said, "From now on I will go to the Gentiles."

Meanwhile, Galatians 2:7–9 says that the grace given to Paul was specifically toward the Gentiles — just as the grace given to Peter was toward the circumcised. The same that worked in Peter also worked in Paul, but in different directions. When the Jerusalem leaders perceived the grace, they extended the right hand of fellowship.

Paul was also leading a church in Antioch of 40,000 people or more. Every time he went among the Gentiles, signs and wonders followed. By every measure of ministry success, the Gentile work was bearing fruit.

And yet he kept going back to the Jews.

Why? Romans 9:1–3 — "I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying. I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh."

That is not strategy. That is a burden.

Because something comes easy to you does not mean you were called to it. Because something produces results does not mean it is your assignment. Your purpose is not found in your area of effortless function. It is found in your area of deepest burden.

If you are consistently unfruitful in an area and yet cannot stop going back — if the utterance does not flow there and the reception is cold and the opposition is fierce — that might be your assignment. Do not focus on your area of strength. Follow your burden.

Interpreting the Prophetic Warning Correctly

Acts 21:10–13 — Agabus came down from Judea, took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, "Thus says the Holy Spirit: so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt." When those around Paul heard this, they wept and begged him not to go.

Paul answered, "What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."

That prophetic word was not given so Paul would avoid Jerusalem. He interpreted it correctly: it was preparation, not protection. It was telling him what to expect and what to prepare his mind for.

If Paul did not go to Jerusalem, he would not be taken to Felix. If he was not taken to Felix, he would not reach Caesar. If he did not reach Caesar, Constantine in 300 AD would not have the interpretive framework to respond to his vision of Christ and legalize Christianity. The entire trajectory of Western Christianity hung on one man correctly interpreting a burden rather than running from it.

When you are walking in your correct interpretation, the Lord will confirm it — not before you step in, but after. He confirmed it in Acts 23:11 when he stood by Paul in the prison and said, "Be of good cheer. As you have testified for me in Jerusalem, you must also bear witness in Rome."

Noah built the ark and then the flood came. He was not told "well done" after laying the first plank. The confirmation came when the structure proved itself in the test.

The Wilderness Test and Its Purpose

Deuteronomy 8:1–3 — All the commandments which I command you today, observe to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which I swore to your fathers. And you shall remember all the way the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to test you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

The forty-year journey was designed to be forty days. What extended it was the condition of the heart. The test kept repeating because the class kept failing. The test is not designed to destroy — it is designed to reveal what is still inside so that what is inside can be addressed.

Jesus faced the same test in his wilderness. Matthew 4:4 — "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." That answer came from Deuteronomy 8:3 — the exact passage about the forty-year wilderness test. He did in forty days what Israel could not do in forty years.

• Israel was told to gather manna daily — they hoarded it.
• Israel was offered bread from heaven — they demanded meat.
• Jesus was tempted to turn stones to bread — he refused.

The test is the same. What changes is the posture of the heart. And what enables the correct posture is understanding what the burden is for — not to punish, but to prepare.

What is commonly called delay is often the test repeating. What appears to be a cycle — a season that lifts after a few months and then returns — may be an invitation that is being missed rather than a problem that needs solving.

The hand of God comes upon a person because exaltation is near. But exaltation requires humility under the hand, not escape from it. Murmuring, comparing, and self-pity are what transformed a forty-day journey into forty years.

Sarah's Partnership — A Lesson in Hidden Delay

Hebrews 11:11 — By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age.

In Genesis 18, when the angel came and spoke of the promise, Sarah laughed inside the tent. The angel asked, "Why did you laugh?" She denied it. What that exchange reveals is that it was the first time Sarah heard the promise directly addressed to her. All along she had thought the promise was about Abraham — to be fulfilled through Abraham's lineage, not necessarily through her womb. That misunderstanding is what produced Ishmael.

Sarah did not cause delay out of rebellion. She caused it out of a misread of the promise. It was not "to Abraham" — it was "to Abraham and Sarai." When she finally heard it clearly and believed it — Isaac came.

Some delays are not spiritual opposition. They are unfulfilled partnership. The promise requires both parties to believe. God's faithfulness has never been the variable.

Father, we bring the burdens you have placed on our hearts. We ask for wisdom to interpret them correctly — not as punishments to escape, but as compasses toward purpose. Give us the grace to humble ourselves under your mighty hand. Teach us in the way we should go. Guide us with your eyes. Let us not quench the weight by filling the space with noise and distraction. Let us travail — and bring forth. In Jesus' name.