Have you ever tried to put together something without directions? Maybe you lost them, or one time the directions I had were only in German, so they weren’t much help. Another time we bought a crib from someone, and it was taken apart and it didn’t have the directions with it. That made for a frustrating few hours. I think it’s a good premarital task to take on. If yall can put some Ikia furniture together without losing your minds on each other, you can probably be married. Having the instructions makes a big difference. It makes the task so much easier and a whole lot less frustrating.
Putting our life together without instructions is exhausting. We have them available, but we get impatient and want to forge ahead without them. After all, we know what we are doing, right? I’m the guy who will have the instructions, but not look at them until I run into a problem. I think we do this with our life too. We do it our way until it just doesn’t work anymore. We are trying hard, and we are trying to live up to the expectations around us, but there are times that it is just too much.
Overwhelmed, burned out, tired, restless; these are just a few ways that I have heard people say they have felt lately and if I am being honest, I have felt some of this too. Jesus knew we would struggle and so He gives us an invitation for rest. He tells us that He has an easier way, if we are overwhelmed, we can come to Him.
Matthew 11:28-30
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Jesus addresses the burdens we bring on ourselves and the weight of the expectations that others have laid on us. The labor is ours, the heavy laden is what others bring. How often have we felt burdened by the weight of our own expectations. I need to get this done, and I need it done now. Maybe it is being the perfect parent, or spouse. Maybe we don’t want to let anyone down, so we say yes to everything.
Inevitably we will fail. I don’t care how hard you try to be a perfect parent; you are going to lose your temper. We are going to forget something. As much as I want to never let my wife down, I do. I’ve gotten angry, I have forgotten to do things. Really my wife is a saint for putting up with me. If we focus too much on these things, we will weigh our soul down.
Then we have what others put on us. Jesus spoke against the Pharisees of His day “binding heavy burdens that are hard to bear on the shoulders of men”. I’ll give you a silly example of this. When I was in high school, I was dating a girl. We were not allowed to sit on the same side of the table as each other and were told “we need to be an example to others.” Now, no other couple was held to the same standard. No one. It was just us. If everyone else was held to the same standard, I would have still been unhappy about it, but I wouldn’t have felt singled out.
There are times this happens to us. People are putting their expectations on us that have nothing to do with what God has for us. You can’t be a Christian and do “this”. If you are a Christian, you must do that. All of us have had that happen. I believe that most times, the people doing it, mean well. The biblical principle of not getting drunk becomes you can’t ever drink alcohol.
There were some 600 regulations for what qualified as working on the Sabbath alone in Jesus’ day. The problem with all of it, our expectations or what others do is that no amount of us doing things a certain way will bridge the gap between our sinfulness and the holiness of God.
The Bible calls our righteous deeds “filthy rags”. The good news is that Jesus says, “come to Him”. When we come to Him, he gives us a “yoke”. What is this yoke? It is His teachings, HIs instructions. We find rest to our souls when we take His instructions and learn from Him.
The yoke joins us to Christ, and He carries the burden for us. We are tied to Him and if we are cooperating with the yoke fits well and is easy to use. The reverse is also true, if we are heavy burdened and feeling exhausted and that we can’t do it, it means something is off.
The process for an ox is that they are trained from a young age and have progressively more sturdy yokes put on them as they grow and are stronger. Jesus is not going to lay anything on us that we cannot bear with the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus isn’t looking to punish us; he isn’t looking to lay blame and add to our shame.
When we come to Him, an open invitation to all, He is taking our shame, carrying our burden, and bringing healing to the wounds we have experienced. It doesn’t mean there won’t be work. When we are yoked together it means we are preparing for work, but we aren’t alone. He is right there with us. In fact, life becomes easier because now we have the “instructions” we were missing that made things so difficult.
If we are being honest, what we want is an instant fix. We want a pill that will make us be in shape. We want to just know the information for the test without studying. We want spiritual reformation without any commitment on our part. We come freely to Jesus. He welcomes anyone who will come to Him, but the rest we find is tethering ourselves to the teachings of Jesus and do it His way.
This isn’t something that we just add to our life like adding a degree or something. Our life is transformed, not altered. Maybe you are coming to Jesus because you think you need a little work done. If He can help me with my marriage, if He can fix my anger issues, I don’t want to that anymore, I do want to do this.
It’s like we have a house that we want some fresh paint on, maybe some new windows, and fresh carpet and it’s good to go. The problem is the foundation is faulty. What Jesus does is come in and demolishes everything and resets a foundation. His word must become the foundation, otherwise everything is unstable.
Luke 6:46-49
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: he is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.
Last week when Pastor Pat preached about taking up our cross, the invitation by Christ to come and die to self, this is the idea. It’s not trying to do patchwork; it is a complete overhaul. So much so that Jesus asks why anyone would call Him Lord and then not be willing to do what He tells us. We don’t do the things of God and the wonder why our life is a mess.
If we want a lighter burden, it means letting the work be done in our heart and life. We have to give up our ideas for His. Proverbs tells us there is a way that seems right to us, but it leads to death. Jesus has the instructions that lead to and abundant life, and eternal life.
As we yoke ourselves to these instructions and allow God to not just have a space in our life, but completely redo our life, life gets more fulfilling. Not because we stop having problems, or we have more money, or whatever other metric we may measure a better life. The burden gets lighter because of the joy and hope we have.
Our life can and does begin to have better things. In general, if you follow the principles of scripture, more times than not you are going to be successful. Ultimately though, we are promised a life with no more pain, no more sorrow, no more anxiety and struggle. His teachings make our heart less prideful, more loving and accepting of others and makes our life less stressful.
Maybe you are thinking that sounds hard. It is hard if you fight it. If you don’t fully commit, it will cause problems. When we are completely committed to keeping God’s word, it isn’t hard. His burden really is light. His commandments aren’t super hard things to do. John said it this way.
1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
All of God’s commandments are summed up in loving others and loving God. The yoke we take on when we come to Jesus causes us to be more patient and loving toward others. If the more you study the word of God, the more judgmental and harsh toward people you become, you don’t understand the purpose.
The reason we sometimes feel that it is a hard weight to carry is because we are trying to have our life the way we want it and Jesus. He isn’t the foundation; He is an addition. we mistakenly equate a light burden with easy. Following Jesus will cost us. It is only easy in the sense that we have peace and will feel more fulfilled. We will still struggle against sin though. It is the struggle against sin that causes us to feel like it is burdensome and that we can’t do it.
To end our time, we will look at a few examples of how that could show up in our life. Here are a few examples of how it we go against what God would say that leads to making it feel too much to bear.
Unforgiveness. The person doesn’t deserve it. They aren’t sorry, nothing. What they did is unforgiveable. We want justice! You may be absolutely right, they might have done something unforgiveable, they might not “deserve” forgiveness. That doesn’t change what we are supposed to do. That feeling in our heart, that pain at the thought of forgiveness for them, is our flesh fighting to keep us from following God’s word.
Comparison. There are two things that happened when we compare. We think to highly of ourselves, or we think too lowly of ourselves. In either case, the focus comes off of our God and on to us. You are enough. God has accepted you as you, and others as they are. We are all on a journey of healing. The burden gets heavy when we lose sight of this idea.
Discontentment or competition. The life in front of us sometimes isn’t enough. We see Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and we long for the life others have. Or we simply aren’t present in the moment because we are always chasing what is next. We want what we want now. God is not in a hurry, we are. We want results now. More people in Church. A better house. Glamorous vacation. The latest car. The best phone. New outfits, etc.
Control. We want to tell God what He should do with our lives. We want to control what others do with their lives. If I do these things then God should do this for me. In reality we are trying to manipulate God and it’s not Him that we want but His stuff. Then we want others to respond the way we want or think and we start treating them as a way to get what we want, instead of the beautiful, unique soul that God has made them.
The yoke of Jesus’ teaching is rooted in love and we should follow after it with reckless abandon. I pray that each of us would evaulate whether we are truly yoked to Christ or have we allowed the systems and desires of this world to steer us away from the way of life. He has come to give you life and life to the full, surrender to His word, love others well, and allow Him to continue to shape us into who He has designed us to be.