Monkey on My Back
Scene: Person walking around with monkey hanging on their back.
Character: Person holding monkey
Props: Monkeys that can hang (labels such as finances, marriage, etc.)
Character: “What am I going to do? I am so tired. I didn’t get any sleep last night. I still have a job to do today. If I don’t work, we don’t eat and we don’t live.”
Turn and walk away from the audience so that they can see one monkey hanging from your back. Continue to add monkeys and comments as necessary to make point.
Relief! We hear commercials galore that tell us how their product can give us relief from anything and everything we can imagine. We can get relief from acid problems by using Tums, Rolaids, or the other 500 hundred medicines. Who could forget Pepto-Bismol? “Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, and diarrhea! Yea, Pepto-Bismol.” If you have chronic pain issues such as back pain, moderate to severe arthritis, or a number of other things, you will pay and do most anything to find relief. The medical community has come up with the amazing ability to help symptoms or even heal a large number of illnesses. Yet, with all our technological capabilities, we still don’t have a source of relief for the pressures and struggles of daily life. Who can help us get the monkey off our backs?
In Matthew 11, Jesus gives some instruction to those who would follow Him. “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 will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Jesus exhibits many different character traits. Today we will be discussing His gentle, helpful side. He knew long before we did of the great struggles of raising kids, having a family, and the deepest parts of life. He knew that we would reach our limits. Our patience will be tested beyond our ability to withstand it. Our own human limitations will draw us away from God. Yet, Jesus promises to do something that may seem almost impossible; He will share the load. He gives three specific instructions to help you share the load with Him. First, you must come to Him for help. Secondly, you must take what He provides and finally you must learn His ways of handling life!
Come – Reach for Him!
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
Jesus gives an invitation to everyone who had labored so much in that day and age. He wasn’t just referring to physical work but to the difficulty of being obedient to all the laws of the Old Testament and the ridiculous 600 extra rules laid on the people by the Pharisees. The people had tried and tried to live their lives according to all the rules, be good people, and raise their families. Yet, instead of rest, peace, and fulfillment they found condemnation and more rules to follow. Jesus even pegs the Pharisees for putting so many heavy burdens on the people and not lifting a finger to help them. On the Sabbath, God did not want man to work. That was the day in which everyone worshipped God in the temple. Yet, the Pharisees said that the people couldn’t walk more than 1 mile at a time without resting or that would be work. This is just a very small example of the kinds of silly laws that wore out the people. The people had enough to do everyday without one more thing. So, Jesus invites them, even at the end of their ropes, to come and find rest.
Children know how this process works better than adults. Mayah even seems to understand this and she is only 1 year old. One day Amy visited me in my office here at the church and I had the radio on. The Christian radio station was playing pretty good music and Mayah was walking around playing with stuff. Well, she found her way to the radio and started playing with the knobs and buttons. She finally found the volume button and turned it all the way up in about a second. She flailed around, dropped to the ground, and crawled frantically towards mommy looking for comfort and safety. Even at one year old, she knows exactly who to go to when she needs safety and comfort.
Jesus says come for a reason. He sits waiting to gently and loving lift the pains and troubles from the shoulders of those who would come. He cannot just take the problems away. He cannot rip them out of your hands and just magically fix them. You have to come to Him and give them to Him. You must realize that He is the source of what you are looking for and that He is willing and able to help. Jesus will gladly share the load with you but you must share your load with Him. You must pray to Him and tell Him about what’s bothering you. You have to stand before Him and honestly let Him know. Yes, he is omniscient and knows all things but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you to learn to speak to Him and communicate with Him. He wants a relationship with you which means you must come to Him in the same manner as Mayah crawled to Amy.
Take – Take what He provides!
“Take My yoke upon you…”
Christ is a gentle and humble helper. He waits patiently for us to return to Him with our burdens. This is only the first of three instructions given by Jesus to help us find rest from the burdens of our lives. The second instruction Christ gives is to “take His yoke…” Back when oxen were used to plow the fields, they would hook two oxen up together as a team with a wood object called a yoke. This would allow them to both pull at the plow together. Yet, another fact is involved in this process. They would always take a much more experienced ox and place him with an inexperienced ox. The experienced one would set the pace, guide, and help control the wild inexperienced ox. So when Jesus says take his yoke, He is saying that he wants to pair up with you in dealing with your life. God is offering to pair up with you and take your burdens upon himself. He says take because he can only offer it, you actually have to join Him and become a part of the duo. You have to invest in your relationship with Him.
This seems like any other gift. Valentine’s Day has passed and hopefully every family has come closer together because of it. Hopefully husbands not only remember but thoughtfully provided their wife with a memento of their love! Yet, no matter how thoughtful or wonderful the gift may have been, you could have just as well rejected it. If he came home with your favorite flowers and the most romantic card ever written, you could have just as easily thrown it all in the trash and ignore it. Maybe you were mad about an argument that you had earlier and didn’t want to listen to some lovey-dovey card. You can take and accept the feelings and actions of others or you can reject them.
The same goes for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is making an offer here directly to you. He is offering to partner with you in carrying the weight of surgeries, marriage, raising children, among the many other troubles you have in your life. Just because you come to Him doesn’t mean you have taken what He offers. So many Christians today live in depression and emptiness because they cannot connect with a loving and wonderful God. They have not partnered with this loving God to help carry the burden with them. Our stubborn desire to do everything ourselves becomes a huge roadblock in receiving peace. You “ask” God to help you and yet you show no change in how you live and deal with the situations. This tells me that you never accepted Christ’s help. You have kept choosing to try and do it all on your own. You never took His hand or if you did, you gave it away and started trying to pull the plow all by yourself. You don’t have the control and guidance. You can accept Him as Savior and never take His hand as friend and helper. He won’t rip it from you. He is too gentle and caring to take something so important. You have to give up your life to partner with His.
Learn – His ways of handling life!
“… and learn from Me, for I am gentles and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Jesus explains that rest comes from Him. He explains that only He is the source of true rest and to have it you must go to Him. Yet, just going to Him alone doesn’t magically place rest in your life. He holds out His hand for you to take. You must take the guidance, strength, and steadiness He provides or you won’t find rest. Lastly, He instructs each person to learn from Him. Jesus says to learn from Him because He is gentle and humble. Why would He name those two categories when He could have named loving and caring? These character traits may be two of the most important we ever have in learning to deal with people. Proverbs says that “A gentle answer turns away wrath.” Humility is described by Christ as a trait which must be present in believers. If you have paired with Christ, you will begin to learn and mimic His traits. This is why they used to yoke and experienced ox with an inexperienced one. The experienced one would teach the other how to do the job properly and with as little additional work as possible.
One reason colleges require students to have internships is so that they can get some field experience with real people in a real situation. I had a great amount to learn in my internship; especially in the arena of working with people. I learned most of what I have learned up to this point from Dr. Thomas. It wasn’t that He instructed me on how I should act and work with people. Nope, actually we spoke very little during our time together for over nine months. In the entirety of those nine months, I would bet we had maybe three lengthy conversations and by lengthy I mean more than three minutes. No, even though I have a great amount more to learn, His example is still etched in my head. He quietly and carefully cared for each person as best as he could. He loved them regardless of who they were or what they did and they knew it. I learned so much from him, just by watching him.
Jesus has an incredible amount to teach us in every realm of life. He can teach us how to have faith in something greater than ourselves. He can teach us how to withstand the trials and temptations of this life. He can teach us what devotion and dedication mean. He can teach us how to love and how to be loved. Yet, we have to accept Him and pair up with Him before He can even begin the teaching process. He wants you to find rest from the troublesome burdens that plague your lives but you have to start learning from Him. You have to learn patience, humility with others, putting others before yourself, and many more. He will take you through each one, day by day, as you grow. He has so much to teach you in dealing with life but you have to give Him the time to teach you. In Evan Almighty, the movie, “God” appears in a diner and speaks to the Evan’s wife. He tells her, “Do you think God gives patience, or ways for people to learn patience? Do you think God makes a family closer, or gives them ways to grow closer?” He gives opportunities to learn the lessons that make life livable.
VIDEO: Broken from SermonSpice.com
So many broken people and broken homes exist today. They are wondering who will help them carry on and move forward through the devastation of their lives. Some of you may not feel broken, but have such a huge burden that brokenness may not be too far from where you are. I want you to meet the gentle helper known as Jesus Christ. He presents three steps in finding rest from your turmoil: 1) You have to come to Him, the source of peace, 2) You have to take the help He offers, and 3) you have to learn from His example. He wants to partner with you to help you live your life. He wants to guide you, teach you, and love you. He is waiting with open arms.
