AN EASY YOKE
Matthew 11:28-30
Martin Luther became a monk believing he could find peace with God for his troubled soul. In 1510 he was chosen to along with another older monk to go to Rome. They left in November from
Nuremberg, Germany to walk about 850 miles though mountain passes and the cold winds.
It was early January when they arrived and Luther threw himself on the ground when he first saw the HolyCity. He was in Rome to comfort his troubled soul and to carry back with him the blessings
it offered to devout pilgrims. Here were seventy monasteries and dozens of churches with their countless relics offering escape from the terrors of purgatory.
Luther visited church after church, saying masses as in them when ever he could. On his hands and knees he climbed the 28 steps Jesus was supposed to have used when he was taken before Pilate.
He saw – or thought he saw – many relics: a crucifix that had once spoken, the chain that had held Paul, the grave of the Samaritan woman, the rope used to drag Jesus to the cross, eleven thorns from Jesus’ crown, a nail from the cross, blood and water from His side and some hair from the Virgin Mary.
The more Luther saw and heard, the more uncomfortable he began to feel. Did the relics really release people from the terrible pains of purgatory? Why did some of the priests smile when they saw that he believed in the power of the relics? Why, after climbing the 28 steps of Pilate and saying an Our Father for his dead grandfather on each step, did he think as he reached the last step,
“Who knows if whether this is true?”
Even though he had tried to do everything he could so God would be pleased with him, he was still troubled in his soul by his sin.
Once when asked if he loved God, Luther replied, “No I hate him”
because he could not find any relief from the guilt of his sin.
The more he did and the harder he tried he just became more
convinced he could never get rid of the guilt he felt over his sin.
Today people seek to earn God’s forgiveness of their sins by:
- Doing good works such as helping the poor.
- Faithfully attending church each week.
- Giving money to help others.
- Trying to be a good person.
Isaiah 64:6 All our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.
Nothing we can do can earn us forgiveness of our sins.
Matthew Henry wrote, “Our best duties are so defective, and
so far short of God’s rule (law), that they are as rags, and so full
of sin and corruption cleaving to them that they are as filthy rags.”
INVITATION TO REST :28
Come to me is an invitation by Jesus to anyone who is burdened with the guilt of their sin which they cannot continue to bear. To come shows your humility by acknowledging your need for help.
God wants us to come humbly to him like little children (:25).
Labor – Gk. tobecome tired from hard work.
Matt. 6:28the lilies of the field neither toil or spin.
Heavy laden(2x) – Gk. to place a burden or loadon
It is to carry something too heavy or too long so you are exhausted.
Luke 11:46Woe to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. The religious leaders had added hundreds of rules to the OT laws which God had given the Israelites. They had tried to keep the people from breaking the commands of God so they added more rules to follow like: how many steps you could walk on the Sabbath and how much weight you could carry.
They condemned a man Jesus had healed because he was carrying his bed on the Sabbath and for the disciples picking grain (12:1-2). Jesus broke the man-made rules for the Sabbath which caused the religious leaders to turn against him. He did this deliberately to show that theywere made by man and not given by God.
Application
Legalism always makes rules believing that if we keep the rules than God will be happy with us. In fact the opposite is true.
When we keep the rules we become proud and believe then that
God owes us something because we have been good, but really
we have only kept rules which we have made ourselves.
Rest(5x) – Gk. release from an obligation
The idea is that you are released from the burden to be refreshed.
It was used of soldiers taking a break from war to regain strength.
Matt. 12:43When an unclean spirit has gone out of a person,
it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.
The Jews believed evil spirits lived in deserted desert places.
An evil spirit is not content to rest because it wants to cause evil.
Here Jesus sayshe will give us rest in place of our trouble.
The grace of God will replace the burden of guilt we carry.
The hymn expresses God’s grace and forgiveness this way:
Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt . . . Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, freely bestowed on all who believe. Grace, grace, God’s grace,
grace that is greater than all our sin!
Christ offers us his grace, we have to humbly accept it.
INSTRUCTION TO SUBMIT :29-30
Relationship :29
Yoke(6x) – Gk. lit. wooden frame put on the neck of oxen tojoin them together so they will work as one to carry a load or plow.
By working together they would share the burden together.
1. Applied to people a yoke means a burden they have to bear or
an obligation which you were required to keep such as the OT law.
Acts 15:10Peter challenged the apostles not to require Gentiles who had accepted Christ as their Savior to have to keep the law.
Why are you placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that
neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
Paul taught that when you accepted Christ you were set free from the obligation to keep the OT law because Christ had fulfilled it.
Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm
therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
2. The word also became a metaphor for the discipline of following the teaching of someone so that you would become like them. Here
Jesus is inviting people to join him so they can be taught the truth that no one can do enough to earn forgiveness of their sins.
Contrast
Rest and yoke are nearly opposites, but Jesus uses these words together to describe what happens when we follow him instead
of our man-made regulations and rules. When we take his yoke
it is not a burden we bear, but a fellowship we share and as a result
we will experience real rest from the burden of our sins.
My yoke referred to his grace for the forgiveness of their sins in place of their works in trying to please God by keeping the law.
Jesus was referring to the practice of training an animal by putting a yoke on one animal which was used to a yoke and on the other side an animal who was being trained. The unbroken animal would sometimes fight against the steps of the tame animal, resulting in its shoulders being chafed. However, when the young animal learned to walk in stride with the trained animal it would experience the ease of an evenly divided load.
Gentle and lowly mean kind and humble instead of harsh and proud which was the attitude of the religious leaders towards the people. Jesus would not make the same demands on them because he would offer them grace if they would believe in him by faith.
Application
A Sunday School teacher read this verse and asked the children what a yoke was. A boy replied, “A yoke is something put on the necks of animals so they can help each other.” Then the teacher asked, “What is the yoke Jesus puts on us?” A quiet little girl raised her hand and said, “It is God putting His arm around us.”
Jesus places his yoke upon us, freeing us from the guilt of our sins.
1. There is nothing you can do to pay the penalty for your sins.
2.Trust in his death as the complete payment for all of your sins.
3. Thank Jesus for dying on the cross so you could be forgiven.
We could paraphrase Jesus words: “Come to me, all you who are worn out and weighed down trying to keep the law of God. Just trust in me because I don’t demand that you do anything. I will give you peace because I will take your burden from you.”
Reason :30
Jesus said that his yoke would be easy to bear instead of difficult and it would be light instead of the heavy requirements of legalism.
1. Easy(7x)– Gk. pleasant instead of difficult
It is translatedgood (1x), goodness (1x) or kind (2x).
His yoke would be easy because he would fulfill the requirements of the law for us so we would not have to fulfill them to be saved.
2. Light(2x) – Gk.not heavy or burdensome
II Cor. 4:17Our light affliction is but for a moment.
His yoke would be light because we would not have to do anything but believe that he kept the law for us and died in our place.
The law demanded perfect obedience which was impossible and the requirements of the religious leaders resulted in legalism so
you felt that you had to earn favor from God. Either way a person carried a heavy load of guilt or pride, but they were not free to rest.
Application
Douglas Webster in his book The Discipline of Surrender wrote,
“We are invited to come under Christ’s yoke and submit to
his authority and power. It is not imposed on us as a burden
but offered to us as a blessing.”
1. Under Christ we are given grace instead of judgment.
2. It is a blessing because we don’t have to do anything
but believe in Christ to receive forgiveness for our sins.
CONCLUSION
Aurelius Augustine was born in North Africa in 354 AD.
His first insight into his sinful nature occurred when he and some friends stole pairs from an orchard which they didn’t want to eat, but just throw away. At the age of 17 he left home to continue his education in rhetoric in Carthage. Although raised a Christian he left the Christian faith to follow the Manichaean religion, much to the despair of his godly mother Monica.
It taught that there is a struggle between a good, spiritual world of light and an evil, material world of darkness. A moral course of action involves a clear choice between good and evil. Thoughout the course of human history light is gradually removed from the world and returned to where it came from. In other words, the world is becoming darker and darker without any hope.
Years later, in his spiritual autobiography called Confessions he wrote, “I thought that it is not we who sin but some other nature that sins without us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and when I did wrong, not to confess it . . . I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unknown thing which was in me but was not part of me. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.”
While in Carthageat the age of 17 he began a 13 year affair with
a young woman with whom he had a son, but he never married. He even ended his relationship with her to enter into another relationship with a younger woman.
He went to Rome to teach and found that the students would take classes until they had to pay and then they would quit without paying. He discovered that no matter how educated he was he felt powerless to resist temptations. He eventually came to trust in Jesus Christ as his personal Savior to be completely forgiven.
At the beginning of his spiritual autobiography he wrote,
“Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts
are restless till they find their rest in Thee.”