The sermon centers on Psalm 38 as a vivid picture of what it feels like when a believer is carrying a burden that is too heavy—especially burdens tied to unconfessed sin, ongoing guilt, bitterness, or unresolved spiritual weight. The pastor frames the psalm as David speaking from “the thick of it,” describing a season where God has every right to correct him. David’s language is intense: God’s “arrows” feel stuck in him, God’s hand feels heavy, and David admits that his sin has become a crushing load. The key phrase the pastor highlights is David’s confession: “Mine iniquities… are too heavy for me.” He explains that iniquity is not just failure but chosen sin—the kind we cling to. The pastor connects Psalm 38 to the aftermath of David’s great sin, emphasizing that although God forgave David, David held onto the weight longer than he should have, and that extended holding produced deep spiritual and emotional consequences.

From that foundation, the message shifts to the idea of “loadbearing.” The pastor uses the metaphor of a loadbearing wall in a building: you might want to remove the wall, but you can’t without also dealing with the “second floor” it supports. Many people, he says, are in that same spiritual position—they want relief from the pressure, but they aren’t willing to remove the underlying structure that depends on it. In other words, they want to stop feeling the pain, but they are still unwilling to surrender the root issue, the habit, the pride, the resentment, or the hidden sin that keeps everything propped up. This trap leaves people stuck, carrying things God never intended them to carry for so long.

The pastor then walks through several consequences that occur when a Christian bears a heavy load too long. First, it breaks down the body and soul. David describes lacking soundness in his flesh and having no rest in his bones—showing how a spiritual issue begins to manifest physically. The pastor stresses that spiritual life always shows outwardly; we should never assume it stays hidden. Second, the weight makes “wounds stink.” David says his wounds are corrupt, and the pastor explains this as the inner festering of pain, bitterness, and unresolved hurt. A clear sign of “stinking wounds,” he says, is when a person lies down at night and can only replay the hurt, the offenders, and the injustice—when negative memory becomes the default mental environment. He adds a warning: bitterness doesn’t truly harm the target as much as it harms the person holding it; bitterness destroys its own container.

Third, the heavy load produces anxiety and troubled inner life, and the pastor distinguishes between a physical/chemical side and a mental side. While acknowledging that some anxiety has bodily components, he emphasizes that much anxiety comes from living in a way that damages thinking—especially fear-driven thinking. He gives examples of people becoming anxious about church because they fear conviction, or anxious about obedience because they fear people’s opinions. He calls attention to the biblical warning that the fear of man is a snare, and he connects that snare to spiritual paralysis: people know what God wants them to do, but they hesitate, overthink, and hold back because they’re worried about how they’ll be perceived or whether they’ll fail. Fourth, the burden can lead to mourning, not only over death but over a kind of living death—being so weighed down that a person feels they cannot truly live the life God gave them, only grieve it. The pastor underlines how short life is and how tragic it is when people spend it under constant heaviness.

Next, the pastor points out that prolonged burden-bearing fractures relationships. David says friends and loved ones stand far off, and the pastor interprets this as what happens when bitterness and negativity spill outward: people withdraw because the environment becomes toxic. He bluntly notes that if someone notices people avoiding them, it may be because the “sore” they carry is affecting everyone around them. He ties this to the necessity of forgiveness, insisting that unresolved resentment creates distance. At the same time, he makes an important clarification: forgiveness does not automatically equal trust. Forgiveness is commanded, but trust must be rebuilt over time after it has been broken. Still, the pastor stresses that believers should not live reactionary, excusing bitterness as “just being human,” because they have the Holy Spirit and are called to respond like Christ rather than repay hurt with hurt.

The pastor then describes another damaging effect: heavy loads dull spiritual responsiveness. Using a simple demonstration, he shows how carrying a light burden allows someone to move quickly when called, but adding weight slows response time. His point is that when God calls believers to serve, obey, or step into ministry, they often respond slowly because they are already overloaded. Eventually, that delay becomes “timing out,” and the opportunity passes—not because God lacked work to do, but because the person was too encumbered to move. The pastor emphasizes that God doesn’t need anyone to accomplish His work; it is a privilege to be used. But unnecessary burdens—sin, fear, bitterness, unresolved cares—can make believers spiritually sluggish and unavailable.

After diagnosing the problem, the message turns practical: how to stop carrying unnecessary weight. The pastor’s first step is drawn from David’s words: “I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.” He explains that this “sorry” is not casual regret but repentance—a brokenness that turns around. Many avoid going to God, he says, because they fear what God will say, projecting human reactions onto God. But Scripture shows God restoring people who fail. He illustrates this with Peter: Peter denied Christ and felt disqualified, but Jesus met him again and restored him—not ignoring the failure, but reestablishing purpose and service. The emphasis is that confession and repentance don’t end usefulness; they open the door for restoration and renewed direction.

Second, the pastor calls for believers to recenter their hope on the Lord. He notes that when sin, fear, or worry becomes central, life revolves around the burden. But when burdens are surrendered, God must return to the center. This affects how a person reads the Bible and prays. He warns that simply reading large amounts of Scripture does not automatically equal spirituality; what matters is desire—opening the Word because you truly need God to speak. He also challenges shallow, routine prayer, comparing it to more intense dedication he observed in other religious leaders, and urging Christians to pray as people who are actually speaking to the One who orders their life, not merely checking a box.

Third, the pastor emphasizes the necessity of church life and involvement, not as convenience but as commitment. Being in church matters not only for personal growth, but because other believers need encouragement and sharpening. He argues that attendance and service are part of loving one’s church, because believers are meant to live beyond themselves—helping others, strengthening others, and investing in others. He explains that a major purpose of ministry is duplication: pouring into others so the next generation is strengthened and ready. He reflects on his years of ministry and describes the joy of seeing younger believers grow through mentorship, with the burden on every Christian to help raise up others rather than lose ground spiritually.

The sermon closes with a plea from Psalm 38’s final verses: “Be not far from me… Make haste to help me.” The pastor’s concluding charge is to stay near God, because strength is found in closeness to Him. Some burdens are God-given responsibilities that must be carried, but many burdens are self-imposed and must be dropped. Either way, the answer is to draw near to God, because pride keeps people distant and prevents relief. He ends by asking whether listeners are willing to “get rid of the second floor”—to surrender what they’ve been protecting—and stop living as a loadbearing wall carrying weight they were never meant to hold. The invitation is clear: release the burdens to God, respond quickly to His call, and live with renewed strength, restored relationships, and a heart close to the Lord.