What Yoke are You Wearing?

He says, it is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent. He says, it's good for a young person to bear a little bit of sorrow, a little bit of depression when they are young, so that they can meditate on life. And he uses the idea of the yoke as a symbolism for the weight of depression or sorrow. In the New Testament, the New Testament writers also use the idea of the yoke.

In Acts chapter 15 for example, verse 10, Paul talks about, or rather Peter talks about the yoke of the law, being the demands of the law of Moses. In Acts chapter 15 verse 10, Peter stands up and he says, now therefore, why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear. The demands of the law, the ceremonial law and all the various ordinances of the law was like a yoke on the neck of the people. And Peter was arguing against those who would put that back on to the Christians neck, so the responsibility or the demands of the law. In other places, the authors use the symbol of a yoke to represent associations or relationships, good or bad relationships.

For example, in Philippians, chapter 4 verse 3, Paul uses the idea of the yoke to demonstrate a good relationship. He says, Philippians chapter 4 verse 3, he says, indeed, true yoke fellow, I ask you also to help these women who have shared in my struggle in the cause of the gospel. In other words, he refers to a brother in Christ as a true yoke fellow. A relationship that he has with another Christian is referred to as a yoke fellow. And then in 2 Corinthians, the same idea, the same symbol of the yoke is used to talk about a bad relationship, a poor relationship.

In 2 Corinthians 6:14, it says, Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? And so there the author is talking about a relationship or a bad relationship where a believer and a non believer are yoked, are together in the same yoke. And so you see that throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, the symbol of the yoke was used to represent many different ideas.

When you take all of these and you boil them down, you get 3 main concepts represented by the yoke throughout the bible. First of all, it was a subjection or a submission of some kind, slavery or obedience or some sort of restriction. Secondly, it was used to describe a burden of some kind, either a physical or an emotional or a spiritual burden. And thirdly, it was used to describe a relationship of some kind, a good relationship or a bad relationship. Alright.

So, you know, I've talked a lot about the yoke because the concept of the yoke is the central image in this passage here in Matthew chapter 11. So when we go back to Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 to 30, I'm going to read that again. Jesus says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my load is light.

So when Jesus is calling us to put on his yoke, he is referring to all three of these elements in our coming to him. When Jesus calls us to put on his yoke, he means 3 things and tonight I want to share with you the 3 things represented by the yoke of Jesus. First of all, Jesus is asking us to submit to him. When he says, put my yoke upon you, he is saying, I want you to submit to me. You know, in this world and in our lives, we think we have a lot of choices.

As Americans, and I'm a Canadian, but I consider myself part of North America, so I'm an American also. As Americans, we pride ourselves in the idea that we have so many choices. This is the land of opportunity and the land of free choice, isn't it? I think we kind of get away with this idea because in reality, the only choice we really have in this life is who or what we will surrender to. That's the only choice we have.

Who or what will we surrender to, in other words, who or what will we yoke ourselves to, that's the only choice we really have. I mean, we can submit to the physical world and obey the constant demands of our flesh for satisfaction. I'm hungry. I want more. I want to taste taste this.

I want to touch that. I want to see this. I want to experience that. Our flesh is always, you know, driving us, you know, to try and to taste and to touch, to acquire, to experience. We can submit to our flesh, submit to this desire always to gather and to taste and to touch and to experience.

We can spend a lifetime of work and effort and time simply taking care of what we want and what we feel. I remember a fellow I met many years ago, he had a Cadillac and he said, all my life since I've been a little boy, I have worked towards this day when I could go purchase a Cadillac. In his mind, he, you know, the Cadillac represented wealth and prestige and honor, you know, you had arrived if you were driving a Coupe DeVille. Can you imagine your life's, you know, high point is going into a GM dealer and buying a Caddy? His whole life.

And I remember, he was an alcoholic too. The scary part is he was an alcoholic and he was a firefighter. That was the scary part. He used to drive those big things. He didn't he wasn't a firefighter for very long.

The point was, he had submitted to the dream of possessing this automobile and that's what consumed him. And once he had it, he reveled in the pleasure of driving this thing around and what he thought it made him look like, what he thought it represented to the world. He's yoked himself to that dream. We can give in to a leader, we can give in and submit to an idea that we will serve all of our lives, whether it be in politics, or in sports, or in fame or in money or in adventure. Saw something on TV last night about this fella who's trying to set the world record for, I think it's called free diving.

In other words, it's going how deep you can go in the water without a mask, without oxygen, just holding your breath. And he went down to 400 feet below water level with no equipment or anything. In other words, the water pressure on him was like £800. And they said if at any moment he opened his mouth, he would have exploded and and they had a film. And he said he was consumed, consumed with the idea of diving to 4 and all of his life was devoted to that.

And I guess in diving circles that might be an admirable thing, but he had yoked himself to this dream and when he came out of the water and they interviewed him, they asked him what is he going to do now, 500 feet. What's he going to do, 500 feet, 600 feet till he dies doing this? He had submitted to the idea of this world record. See, we can surrender to a whole bunch of things. We have the choice of surrendering to a whole bunch of things in this world.

Or we can surrender our will and our lives to Jesus Christ for his purposes. See, that's the choice. You surrender one thing or another. No one can be neutral. Everybody has to serve somebody.

I think there was a Bob Dylan came out when he went through his Christian phase many years ago, came out with a song that says, you've got to serve somebody. Serving isn't the issue, it's who you're going to serve. In this passage, Jesus calls people to choose him. Choose me, He says, you're going to surrender to somebody, I'm inviting you to choose me to surrender to. And so the first concept, the first yoke that he's talking about is the idea of surrendering to Him rather than to something or to someone else.

Secondly, when he's inviting us to come to him and to put on his yoke, he is asking us to carry the burden of faith. I was wondering, what's he mean in Matthew 11? You know, take my yoke, carry my yoke. What are we supposed to be carrying? What we carry is the burden of faith.

You see, in the passage before this, Jesus has rebuked the Jews, especially the Pharisees who refused to believe in him and he warned them that they would bear a heavy judgment for their disbelief. He warned them that they would bear judgment because they refused to believe in him. You see, disbelief is a burden that you carry, a heavy burden that you carry. I mean, it is hard to maintain or to carry the burden of disbelief in the face of all the evidence there is for belief. I mean, you gotta work hard not to believe.

You've gotta work hard not to believe in God. You have to work extra hard not to believe in Jesus Christ because of all the evidence that exists in this world. And disbelief brings no reward for all the effort that you have to put into disbelieving, there's very little reward for it. I mean, there's no peace or love or joy in disbelief. That's not the reward of disbelief.

There's no, promised land for those who disbelieve, and the pleasures that are permitted by disbelief are momentary at best. Right? Sure, because you don't believe, you know, I hear sometimes kids they say, well, I wish I wasn't a Christian, you know, I'd be able to do this and I'd be able to do that, but you know, the this and the that that you'd be able to do because you're not a Christian only leads to pain and suffering. The momentary pleasure of sin, but the burden of faith that Jesus is talking about is very easy and very light. God provides so many reasons to believe and he helps our faith through the word that we have and through the Holy Spirit that we possess.

And believing provides so many benefits such as peace and confidence and rest and the promise of eternal life. In the end, what makes the burden of faith so easy is that we have Jesus that provides the example that we need to carry the burden of faith. And so, those who carry disbelief are doomed to bear the heaviness of this burden forever because their disbelief brings no satisfaction, it brings no relief, it brings nothing. But in Jesus Christ, we exchange the heavy, the heaviness of disbelief for the likeness of belief. That's what he's talking about here.

With Jesus, we finally lay down our burden of disbelief, and we take on the yoke or the burden of belief, which is easy. It's easy to believe in Jesus. It's easy to believe in God. Take a look at the sky. Take a look at creation.

Scientists, we're watching, you know, science and the marvel the marvelous world of of the creation around us. It's so easy to believe in an almighty and powerful and loving God. It's easy. The burden of belief is light. A God that sends his son to die for our sins and resurrects.

We have more evidence for the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. We have more hard evidence that exists. Documents, eyewitness documents that are contained 5,000 of them that still exist today in various museums throughout the world. There's a lot more hard copy documentation about the life, death and burial of Jesus Christ than there is for the existence of Nero or Plato or even Shakespeare. The burden of belief is very, very light.

And when we come to Jesus and take on the burden of belief, we finally, finally come to rest. We don't have to struggle with disbelief anymore. And finally, when Jesus is saying, take on my yoke, he is asking us to enter a relationship with him. Remember I said the yoke represented either a good or a bad relationship? Well, Jesus is saying, I want you to come into a relationship with me.

Every yoke implies a relationship of some kind. Usually, however, in the bible, it's a relationship where there is slavery or the loss of privilege for somebody. But Jesus calls us to put on his yoke, which means that we enter into a relationship with him to our advantage. That's the beauty of it. In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3, Paul says that, every blessing that is spiritual in nature belongs to those who are in a relationship with Christ.

Now, don't get me wrong, when we say blessings, we're usually thinking about money and health and success and talent, among other things. And don't get me wrong, those are blessings. Who would deny that money or health are not blessings? They're wonderful blessings, and we all should pray for them and be thankful when we have those things, that a man succeeds, that a woman succeeds, those are great things. But in Ephesians 1 verse 3, Paul is not talking about physical blessings, he's talking about spiritual blessings.

Those who are related, who are yoked to Christ, for them, God has reserved all of the blessings that exist in heaven. Blessings like the forgiveness for all of our sins, the knowledge that we have of God, spiritual gifts, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. All those things, including the resurrection and glorification, a new body, a new spiritual body that we will have after we are resurrected from the dead, and in addition to this, eternal life. Those are spiritual blessings that we will receive. Now, every relationship that we ever have with anybody at any time in our lives always bears some kind of fruit.

The relationship you have with your mom, with your brother, with your boyfriend, with your husband, with your work associate, every relationship that you'll ever have will always bear some kind of fruit all the time. But Jesus is inviting us to enter a relationship that will exclusively benefit us. And that's something that none of our ever other relationships ever do. No other relationship that we ever have just benefits us. It's usually a kind of a give and take type of thing, you know, you the good and the bad, you mix your water with your wine, you know what type that expression?

Our relationship with Jesus is a 100% benefit for us. His death causes our life. His suffering causes our forgiveness. His giving and His service gives us something. There's nothing we give Him back to add to what He already has.

So my question is very simple as I close out the lesson, and as I point us into 1995. The question is simple. What yoke are you carrying tonight? What yoke is it that you carry? Do you carry the yoke of disbelief and doubt?

First of all, let's get it straight. Everybody in this room is carrying a yoke, whether you're listening to me or not, whether you're paying attention or not. Doesn't change the fact that you carry a yoke. My question is, have you ever stopped and asked yourself what yoke it is that you're carrying? Are you carrying the yoke of disbelief, the yoke of doubt?

Are you carrying the yoke of rebellion or sin? Are you carrying the yoke of fatigue or worry or sadness? Are you carrying the yoke of ignorance? In other words, you don't know what you believe. You're not sure of what you want.

My question to you is, wouldn't you rather be yoked to Jesus than have all of those other yokes that I've just mentioned? After all, he's God's son. Wouldn't you rather be in a relationship with God's son than in a relationship with disbelief and doubt and fatigue and worry? Jesus can lighten your load of fear and doubt and worry and shame and sadness, And with him your burden will truly become light and easy to carry no matter what it is. We're always looking for this cause effect thing.

We always wanna figure out all the nuts and bolts and Jesus doesn't give you all the nuts and bolts. He just says, take off the yoke that you're carrying and put mine on, and I will take care of the fatigue and the worry and the doubt and the shame and the fear. In Galatians chapter 3, now the thing about the bible is that many times, the bible says one thing in one place and it gives an explanation in another place. Jesus doesn't say how to put on the yoke, he just says, come, if you wanna put on the yoke, come. And he tells you the advantage of his yoke.

It's easy. It's light. You'll find rest. But it's left to Paul, the apostle, to explain how to put that yoke on. You know, he's not really talking about a wooden piece of equipment that you put on your neck.

He's not talking about that. He's talking about a relationship with Christ. And Paul the apostle explains how to put the yoke on. In Galatians chapter 23 verse 26, he says, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. So faith in Jesus Christ is the way to put the yoke on.

And then he explains a little further how that faith is expressed. He says, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. What have you put on when you're baptized into Christ? You've put the yoke on. You've put the yoke of Christ on yourself when you're baptized into Christ.

If you haven't done so yet, we encourage you to come tonight and just put the yoke of Christ on in baptism. And perhaps, and I would suspect there are more of you here in the other category than those who are not yoked to Christ, perhaps you've taken it off because you can take it off too. You can unsnap it and take it off if you'd like. If you've taken the yoke off and yoked yourself to something else in the meantime, perhaps would be a good time tonight also to come back and put the yoke back on by asking for forgiveness in the prayers of the elders for your sins and your restoration. Whatever you need tonight, we encourage you to come forward and to receive Christ as we stand and as we sing the song of invitation.