Stop Carrying That Bag

This past weekend we were privileged to have Karl Martin speak at our services. Karl is the founder and CEO of Arable, a leadership house dedicated to helping leaders and organizations cultivate cultural health, deep character, and effective, soulful leadership.

Karl is also the author of the leadership book The Cave, The Road, The Table, and The Fire, in which he introduces a helpful metaphor: that everyone has four bags in life. In his book, he asks questions like: What are you carrying that’s yours? What responsibilities are you burdened with that aren’t yours? Which things belong in God’s hands alone?

Karl’s “four bags” concept isn’t just for the business world but is a helpful framework for living an effective Christian life. I’d like to share what each of the four bags represents and show a biblical example of what it looks like.

1. Your Bag: The Bag You Must Carry

David Refusing Saul’s Armor (1 Samuel 17)
When David courageously volunteers to fight the giant Goliath, King Saul offers him his personal armor before running into the battle. But David replied, “I cannot go in these.”

That armor was Saul’s bag, not David’s. David had a different design. A different calling. A different way of fighting.

God gave David a unique bag:

• A sling
  • Five smooth stones
  • Courage
  • A cause worth fighting for

Your “bag” is that combination of gifts, passions, responsibilities, and purpose that God has uniquely given you. It is not someone else’s burden to carry or their mission for you to replicate.

When we try to walk in someone else’s calling, we lose the freedom of our own. When we neglect our God-given bag out of fear, comparison, or busyness, we miss out on living in alignment with who we are made to be.

“Each one should test their own work.” Galatians 6:4

You must own your bag. You must steward what God has placed in your hands. And you must trust that He has equipped you for your path.

2. Someone Else’s Bag: The Greatest Opposition to Your Purpose

Moses and Jethro’s Advice (Exodus 18)
In Exodus 18, Moses is leading the entire nation of Israel. He is listening to every dispute, solving every conflict, answering every question. From morning until evening, people stand in line waiting for Moses to fix their lives.

When Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, sees this, he gives him wise and practical advice.

“What you are doing is not good… You will wear yourself out. The work is too heavy for you. You cannot handle it alone.”

In other words:
Moses, you are carrying bags that aren’t yours.

Moses cared for the people, but his desire to help slowly turned into the unhealthy habit of taking responsibility for everyone else’s life.

Jethro gives him a blueprint for healthy boundaries:

• Moses should teach the people God’s ways
  • Moses should train others to lead
  • Moses should appoint capable people to handle smaller matters
  • Moses should only carry the things that only he could carry

When we take someone else’s bag, we take away opportunities for others to grow in faith, character, and dependence on God.

This applies not only personally but also as a church. There are moments when we step in to serve, to lift people in crisis, to stand with the broken. But we cannot do everything for everyone. This is why we need apprentices on our serve teams.

And there are times, just like Moses, when the most spiritual thing we can say is:
“I can walk with you, but I cannot carry this for you.”

 3. No One’s Bag: The Bag We Inherited but Should Lay Down

When Jesus confronted the Pharisees in Matthew 23, He described a very specific kind of burden.

“They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” Matthew 23:4

These weren’t God-given commands.
They were traditions, interpretations, add-ons, and extra rules passed down through generations.

In other words:
Bags no one was ever meant to carry.

Over time, the Pharisees had inherited layers of expectations:

• Rituals God never required
  • Rules meant to display spirituality rather than form it
  • Traditions upheld out of pressure, not purpose
  • Standards that measured performance, not the heart

These heavy loads weighed people down spiritually, emotionally, and socially.

Jesus calls them what they are:
Man-made burdens inherited without discernment.

This is the heart of “no one’s bag.”
Picking up expectations, systems, habits, or pressures that belong to tradition, not to God.

Jesus invites His followers to drop unnecessary weight:

• The pressure to impress
  • The expectations of others
  • Inherited ways of performing for God
  • The idea that busyness equals holiness

Jesus says:
“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:30

Meaning, if the weight is crushing, it didn’t come from Him.

So many of us unknowingly inherit bags:

• “This is just how our family does it.”
  • “This is how church is supposed to look.”
  • “This is the expectation I must uphold.”

The Pharisees clung to inherited burdens and passed them on.
Jesus breaks the chain.
And He invites us to do the same.

4. God’s Bag: The Things Only He Can Carry

When the Israelites stood trapped at the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s army behind them and the waters before them, the human instinct was to panic, but God gave this message:

“The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14

In that moment, God was saying:
“This is not your fight to carry.”

There are things in life only God can carry.

• The future
  • Spiritual transformation
  • Justice
  • Salvation
  • Church growth
  • Reconciliation
  • Hearts that need to be changed
  • Timing
  • Provision

When we try to grasp these responsibilities, we become anxious, controlling, and exhausted.

But when we surrender them, something shifts. We begin to rest in God’s sovereignty. We trust His timing. We lean into His strength.

Jesus invites us:
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

We don’t have to carry everything. We don’t have to fix everything. We don’t have to make it all work. God invites us to place His responsibilities in His hands and trust that He is willing and able to carry them.

1. Your Bag is the calling, gifts, and purpose God has entrusted to you.
2. Other People’s Bag is the burden others carry that we can support but not take over.
3. No One’s Bag is the toxic weight, inherited pressure, and unnecessary expectation we must lay down.
4. God’s Bag is the outcome, the future, the transformation, and the things only He can carry.

When we carry the right bag:

• We learn to stay in our lane and carry what God has given us.
  • We grow in wisdom and humility as we support others without taking over.
  • We release the burdens of comparison, expectation, and pressure.
  • We surrender control to the One who holds our lives in His hands.