We’ve been very serious in our Bible studies for the last few weeks.
So this evening, let’s lighten up and have some fun with verse 15 (while still making a spiritual application).
What do you picture Paul and his group doing when they “took up their carriages?”
Does this mean that got to ride from Caesarea to Jerusalem on a fancy Brougham Carriage pulled by six white stallions?
Or does this mean that their carriage was broken, and first they had to pick it up and set it on its wheels?
Here is one of those instances when we need to read the Bible with our eyes – and our dictionaries – open.
Just because we think that we know what the word “carriage” means, it ain’t necessarily so.
Here are two different words: what do “baggage” and “luggage” have in common?
Most people would say, “Just about everything, because they are synonyms.”
Another thing that they have in common is that they both have seven letters.
And another is that both end in “a-g-e.”
What do “baggage,” “luggage” and “carriage” have in common?
And some people might say that all three of them are synonyms.
And “luggage” was stuff that we lugged around in hotels and airports.
And “carriage” was the same stuff except instead of lugging it, it was a little lighter, and we carried it.
“a wheeled vehicle, especially a four-wheeled horse-drawn passenger vehicle,
And the sixth definition is: “The act or process of transporting or carrying something,” as in the case of one’s head or body.”
It’s this sixth definition that we have here in Acts 21:15.
It wasn’t that Paul got into a nice big stagecoach to finish his trip up to Jerusalem.
No, he and the others each PICKED-UP the things that they needed to carry up to the big city.
We find this word five times in the Bible, and this is the only way that it is used.
In other words, “carriage” is stuff that they had to carry.
For the sake of our message this evening, I’m going to allegorize what Luke and the others did here and try to make an application or two.
My friend, and former church-member, Romeo Buenaventura suffers from the effects of polio.
But his legs are withered and deformed, and he has to use crutches to get around.
Those legs and crutches are a part of his carriage.
So, at his insistence, we all went to the Outback Steak house.
As we sat down he put his crutches on the floor next to his chair,
later that evening she tripped over those crutches and went crashing to the floor.
He picked up his carriage, went to college, applied for a good job, got that job, and kept it.
Let’s say that yours is a gigantic nose, for which you were often teased unmercifully when you were a child.
But now you are grown, and you can do something about that nose if you want to.
You can go to a plastic surgeon and have it cut off, or…..
Do you know the names Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope? How about Cyrano de Bergerac?
Those men carried their excess baggage and used it as a part of their fame.
In the case of Luke, Paul and the others, part of their carriage was a quantity of gold and silver.
Not only do most of us have baggage that isn’t the kind that we’d prefer,
We have had our lives and characters changed so that we are actually nicer people than we once were.
Our sense of humor has been sanctified, and our minds have been quickened.
We have been placed in one of the Lord’s churches where we have heard and learned the Word of God.
We have been given many wonderful gifts,
and we need to let people know that we possess them.
According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.”
Imagine a group of people waiting in line at the airport for a flight to some exotic destination like St. Paul, Minnesota or Omaha, Nebraska.
Those people are of all different kinds and varieties: college kids, ladies with children, business men, etc.
Some of them have teddy bear back packs; some of them have computer cases; some of them have gifts, some have their lunches and some are lugging other kinds of carry-on luggage.
But then in this particular case, half of them have a bail of straw strapped to their backs.
How silly is that?
There are a lot of Christians who are on their way to the New Jerusalem,
where, after being judged by Christ Jesus, they are going to reside for eternity,
How silly is that?
John Bunyan’s illustration of Pilgrim’s burden falling off his back as he knelt before the cross and rolling down the hill and into an empty tomb can be used in more than one way.
Many of us have sins which we picked up and habitualized before our salvation, which we’ve never learned to drop.
Many of us have sinless habits, which are none-the-less hindrances to our spiritual progress.
We need to carry and dispense Our duties and responsibilities as required,
Get rid of them.
They are OUR carriages.
And there is something about us that enables Christians to carry other Christian’s burdens.
We may not be able to carry our own baggage very well,
we have the God-given ability to assist others with their burdens.
Not every problem should be made public.
And not every Christian is spiritual enough to properly handle another person’s problem.
But many burdens can and should be shared with the right people.
I have had church members come to me with enormous weights upon their shoulders, which they then shared with me.
In some cases they are things which would shock everyone here if you knew.
Many of these things I have not mentioned to anyone, not even to my wife.
But I think – I hope – that when those burdens were shared with me, that person afterward found that load easier to carry.
And I welcome them all, if in telling me, it helps that Christian get up the road a little more easily.
In some cases we can share our carriages with others.
But more importantly than me, there is the Another Who is happy to help carry your carriage.
Turn to I Peter 5:5-11: – “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me.
God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.
He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken his covenant.
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
Now that we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, the Lord continues to be concerned about the weights that we carry about in our hearts.
“If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
Jesus died for your salvation “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
Turn to Galatians 6 – “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
For every man shall bear his own burden.”
bear ye ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
But whatever this brother has done is not good.
Whatever it is, it is ungodly and unchristian, and it brings down the Name of our Saviour.
Bear, or carry away, the weight that this fault has caused.
Be like the Saviour in this, because all sin is against God.
Don’t think more highly of yourself than you should.
Aesop says that all men carry two bags over their shoulders, the one with his own sins hanging behind and that with his neighbor’s sins in front.
What am I trying to say this evening?
If you are a child of God, if you are a Christian, then you are on your way to the Spiritual Jerusalem.
And getting there means taking up the luggage for which you are responsible.
And some of it you have created for yourself.
And as we do that, we should also do our best to ease the load that our neighbor is carrying.
This is one aspect of what the Christian life is all about.