Finding God’s Strength
Matthew 5:5 and 11:28-30
The setting for the message this morning is found in one of the highlights of the ministry of Jesus. His ministry had its share of highs and lows but this was definitely one of his finer moments. In the background, Jesus had just gone through Galilee…the Bible says He has been teaching and preaching in the synagogues, He has been healing every disease and sickness among the people. News has begun to spread all over Syria. So more people came to Him to be healed. People suffering severe pain, those who were demon possessed, those having seizures and the paralyzed and he healed them.
At that point Matthew says that large crowds came from all over that area and followed him. As they arrived and Jesus saw the crowds he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples were there and He began to teach and in v. 5 He said this….blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.
Like many of the teachings of Jesus, the words He spoke did not really go along with the popular views of the day. Listen again to what he said…blessed are the meek…they will inherit the earth. This is certainly not the teaching that is found in the business world today. Rather young people are taught that in order to succeed you must :
• Focus on yourself first
• If you need to run over someone to get to the top, go ahead
• Succeed at all costs
These are popular teachings right now in the 21st century but believe it or not it was very similar in the 1st century. Many people in that day associated power with religion and so when Jesus came along and became very popular among the people, the religious leaders felt threatened. They were accustomed to being able to force the people to do whatever they wanted them to do---they constantly took advantage of the people in an attempt to only make life better for one person-themselves.
And in the middle of all of that Jesus brings this teaching…Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. The main problem with this word meekness is that too many people associate it with weakness. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is actually best defined as power under control.
• Moses was a powerful leader. He took the Israelites through the wilderness all the way to the promised land. He stood up to Pharaoh and the Bible says that he was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.
• Jesus himself told us that He was meek and humble in his heart.
Now in this series called Life’s Healing Choices we have looked at 2 choices so far that we must make…. (1) Realize we are not God. Admit that we are powerless. (2) Earnestly believe that God exists. And believe that He has the power and the desire to help us. (3) choose to Commit our lives to His care. This the choice of commitment.
Commitment is a difficult choice for many people. Men, for one reason or another often get labelled with being unable to commit to something. I think the problem with commitment is this…we make a commitment to something and when we do we don’t know the future holds for us and then we feel like we are no longer in control.
In Matthew 1 Jesus spoke these words, Come to me all of you who are weary and overburdened and I will give you rest. For I am meek and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Now let’s face it. That’s a pretty amazing deal. In this passage Jesus tells us that we must do 3 things. 1. Come to Jesus. Whenever you face any difficulty in life, whatever you do first says volumes about your spiritual life. The apostle Paul prayed constantly. And even when his prayer was not answered the way he wanted it, he prayed again and again. Job, faced one tragedy after another but he continued to go to the Lord for his strength. Even as things grew worse Job kept his walk with the Lord. Even his friends turned against him and his wife as well.
Let me ask you, what is the first thing you do when you receive difficult news? And who is the first person you go to? Whatever difficulty you and I face, our first step should be in the direction of Jesus.
2. Put on His yoke. A yoke is a wooden beam normally used between a pair of oxen to enable them to work together to pull a heavy load. As in this slide.
This is a yoke. The most common form of a yoke was one that rested on the neck with a connecting bar of some kind. The cattle were then connected to a plow or wagon they would carry. The things that is most obvious about it and that we notice immediately is that it is made for two. To share the load. So it must be fitted properly on both animals so that one of them does not bear too much weight. You can perhaps imagine that if it did not fit properly or if he tried to place it on one animal only that it would hurt the animal and the animal could even be choked.
The word yoke is a fairly common word used in the Bible about 60 times.
• Paul tells us that in a marriage 2 people should not be unequally yoked.
• OT talks about the yoke of our sin and the great burden it can cause us
• NY yoke of bondage. Galatians 5:1
The warning here is that once you know Christ; once you are walking in grace, don’t return to the law. Paul said as you therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. You started in grace; continue in grace.
And so there is a certain picture here when we consider this yoke that Jesus is saying that his yoke is easier to carry. This word yoke in the OT was a symbol for the law of God. In this passage Jesus is using it in the same way. Now this is important. The contrast here is not between having a yoke or not having a yoke; the contrast is between having a heavy yoke of a light yoke. All of us have one. The teaching of the scribes which carried many commandments and laws actually had 613 commandments for them to keep up with. Jesus offered a much lighter load. A yoke of grace for two people…you and Him.
3. Learn of Him. So we see here that Jesus does not force this yoke on us. We take it. It’s a choice. All of us have a burden to carry; the question is whether we will carry one that is within our limits or one that is heavier than we were designed for.
I know that for some of you here today that the load has been too heavy. You feel strained. You might even say that it feels like more than you can bear. Jesus issued one challenge after another to his disciples and of course to us as well.
• He said put this yoke on and so we think of the burden
• He said to the rich man---sell all you have and give it away
• He said to follow Him and hate your mother and father
• If your right hand offends you cut it off
One more….if you are going to be my follower, pick up your cross first. The cross is a beautiful thing to us today but only because of the man who died on it. It was a symbol of death and the disciples knew that in following Jesus it could cost them their life.
It was also a symbol of the burden we all carry at times. We hear people say this is my cross to bear. And so many times for so many people the Christian life has become a burden---something it was never meant to be. To some it is nothing more than a list of rules to follow---a list of do’s and don’ts it was never intended to be. All because our focus is in the wrong place.
The story has been told of a man who constantly complained about the size of the cross he had to carry and was convinced his life was more difficult than anyone else’s. No one had gone through what he had experienced!
He thought if only I could talk to God about it. So as the story goes, an angel appeared to him and took the man to the room in heaven where crosses were assigned. The angel told him to look around and he could pick whatever cross he wanted to bear. The man smiled and went into the room. There he saw crosses of all kinds. Some were huge.
As he walked through the room, he finally noticed two crosses; one was about 3 feet tall and the other about 4 feet tall. So he cried out I’ll take that one, pointing at the smaller one. The angel said are you sure that’s the one you want? The man replied, “look you don’t know what I’ve been through. I just can’t carry that large cross anymore. The angel said, well the only reason I asked is because that small one’s the one you brought with you when you came in.
