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Plainly Speaking
with Karl J. Forehand
Going to Class with Jesus Series
The
Easy Yoke
by Karl J. Forehand
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." (Matt. 11:28-30)
Sunday
night, I emailed my pastor. After all
the activities were done for the day, I sit down and wrote a simple email that simply said,
“I’m tired.” He told me not to write
him those types of emails on Monday.
He preaches four sermons every Sunday and was probably much more exhausted
than I was. It was very interesting
to me that the next day when I picked up this passage, I began to examine my exhaustion
for what it really was.
There is
no doubt that the Christian life is tough.
Before Christ, the Bible describes us people that were blown around by
the wind (Eph. 4:14). With Christ, we
follow the impulses of our heart (Eccl. 11:9). Initially, the sinful life is easy; even though if has
devastating consequences. In reality,
it takes no intestinal fortitude to sin and do what everyone else is doing.
With
Christ, our actions have to be more deliberate. We have choices to make.
The right choices bring have eternal consequences. The wrong choices can cause frustration
and bring to exhaustion to the Christian life.
The
reason we are exhausted and overburdened is often the way we carry the
load. God has relieved us of the
burden of sin and we keep reloading the wagon with things that don’t need to
be there.
Douglas Webster says, “Instead of a quest for success, their
first needs to be rest for the sould (form which life’s meaning, purpose and
significance emerge…The DNA-like blueprint for spiritual growth is not the will to perform, but the
discipline of surrender.”
Jesus said, “If anyone wished to
come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow
Me. “For whoever wishes to save his
life shall lose it, but whoever loses his for for My sake, he is the one who
will save it” (Luke 9:23-24). Following Jesus becomes a
heavy and confusing burden when it is lived only part time or approached
half-heartedly. As long as it is your
hobby or your self-help technique, it can be an unnecessary burden.
Jesus said, “Come to Me.” Jesus is the only one that can lead you to rest from the burden
and the only way to Him is surrender.
The eternal rest is available for believers and it happens at Jesus’
feet. The writer of Hebrews says, “There remains therefore a
Sabbath rest for the people of God.
For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his
works, as God did from His. Let us
therefore be diligent to enter that rest. (Heb. 4:9-11a).
The mission is daunting; but we do not
have to be exhausted. We do not have
to be overburdened. And, we can find
rest for our souls.
1. We
find peace with God when we come to Him
The
first thing we must do is unload the wrong burdens. We can’t save ourselves.
Trying to work our way to heaven is the wrong load (Eph. 2:8-9). We also cannot serve by ourselves. A person may be able to do brain surgery,
but they can’t serve God without God’s help. We can’t survive without Him (remember the sheep and wolves). We can’t succeed without Him. We have to come to Him, to find the peace
and ability to please Him.
Peace with God comes when we unburden ourselves. No matter how talented or charismatic we
are, we still have to unload before Him.
Coming to Him is not to showcase our talents. It is not to list our
accomplishments. When you come to
God, it is not to give Him a wish list for our lives. It is not to pass Him a “to do” list. He doesn’t need our agenda – He needs us
to unload.
The
Bible instructs us to cast all our anxiety on Jesus (I Peter 5:7).
2. We
find the peace of God when we get in the yoke with Jesus.
Jesus
said, “take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” You learn while you are in the yoke. Learning is what we are supposed to do as disciples. Disciple means learner. You learn the most while you are in the
yoke. When I learned to drive a
combine, I learned in the field. The
guy tried to teach me while we were at the shop, but I didn’t really learn
until I got in the field and “ragged” the wheat for a while. We learn in the “yoke” with Jesus. We learn nothing in our own yoke, except
that we are in the wrong yoke.
If we
are not yoked to Christ, we are missing the substance and depth of the
Christian life. We will never find
rest for our souls until we get in the yoke.
Why? Because His yoke is easy,
(pleasant, well-fitting) because it is the one we are supposed to be wearing. His burden is light. It is not designed to torture us, but
rather to teach us.
Why are you weary and heavy laden?
Some
would say, “I’m worried about a lot of things”
Is that Jesus’ yoke. I had a small fit this week because my tires prematurely wore
out. It only cost me $41.00 to fix
them; but I wasn’t planning on fixing them.
I pouted all the way home.
Then I remembered that I had got an unexpected check in the mail, the
day before, for $42.00. Pastors
sometimes worry about every aspect of their congregation, even though God
often reminds us that is the wrong yoke.
Others
would say, “Things are not going the way I expected.”
Did you know that we are not required to carry
the yoke of our destiny? God is in
charge of how our life turns out. He
is in charge of our eternal destiny and the physical legacy that we create on
earth. The way things “go” are
totally up to him.
Many
often say, “I have so much to do”
I believe you can be busier than a one-legged man
in a fanny-kicking contest and still be in the yoke. The question is, “Are you submitted.” You can be extremely busy and still be in
the right yoke. At the same time, we
can get all of our to-do list completed and not be in the right yoke. The measuring stick is not what we get
done or don’t get done – the measurement is our submission.
In the right yoke, you will find that The
yoke is easy and the burden is light
It is your choice.
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