The Yoke
Discipleship Series 2023
CCCAG 2-11-24
Scripture- Matthew 11:28-30
This morning we will be continuing the series on discipleship.
This is a continuation on where we left off a few weeks ago when we talked about picking up our cross and following Jesus.
We will be focused on Jesus making this point using something other than a cross, and in this case, it’s going to be something called a yoke.
If you aren’t Amish or an older farmer, you probably don’t know what a yoke is.
The picture on the screen is what Jesus is referring to here. Two animals, typically oxen, would stand next to each other and have this put over them so that they could pull a plow, or a cart, or a sled with materials on it.
An interesting fact I came across when I was studying for this message-
A typical ox can pull 5000 pounds, but if you add another oxen, it doesn’t double the power of a single ox, it triples it to 15,000 pounds.
So, yokes were used quite often to maximize the ox’s power.
Another fact about yokes. Take a look at the picture again- what do you notice about the size of the loops that went around the neck?
They would typically have an older, experienced ox with a younger ox. They did that because the older ox would, through example, teach the younger ox exactly what the master wanted, and how to maximize their efforts.
In essence, among these two oxen, discipleship happened when both animals were under a yoke.
Keep that in mind as we look to today’s scripture. We will come back to this point a few times.
Let’s go to the scripture-
A quick background- Jesus is in the northern area of Israel preaching in the cities around the Sea of Galilee. His message is beginning to grow a little sharper in that he starts stressing the need to repent more often and is denouncing the religious establishment run by the Pharisees.
Jesus then teaches the people what the answer is to many of their spiritual burdens -
Matt 11:28-30
28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Prayer
With my new job which focus’ on behavioral health and psychiatric nursing, I have been thinking a lot lately about how people deal with stress and the pressures that life throws at them.
Some people use substance like nicotine to calm them down, either through smoking, dipping, or chewing.
Some people use alcohol to give them a sense of relief from stress and pressure.
Another way that people deal with stress that is becoming increasingly popular is THC.
Within a few years, Wisconsin will soon become a state where Marijuana and THC, which is the chemical (Delta 9) in marijuana that gets you high will be legalized. However, it’s already legal to have THC (Delta 8 & 10), as long as they chemically alter it just a little by adding an oxalate molecule.
So, this version of THC, that is actually more potent than what you get from pot, is right now being sold in most of the gas stations in our area.
But it’s not just recreational chemicals. It’s seen in the top prescriptions filled in this country right now.
In 2023, out of the top 50 prescribed medications, over 1/3 of them were antidepressants or for other mental health issues.
Obviously, our world has a lot of stress going on. That stress wears us down and drains us to the point of being very weary with life.
That’s where we are going to start today, but looking at the weariness being experienced by so many today-
I. Weariness and burdens
I’ve been teaching on this a lot recently, but I want to again remind you that humanity is a spiritual creature that lives in a physical body. (Repeat)
That’s important to remember when we talk about stress and things that get you depressed, worried, tempted, and tried. This is because of a spiritual war being waged.
Eph 6:12-13
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
NIV
All of these stressors coming at you right now are deliberate attacks from the enemy to wear you down and make you weary, feeling defeated, feeling like you can’t measure up, and rip away any hope that you might have.
Again, this is deliberate. The enemy knows how to attack us in general, and has a dossier on you in particular on which kind of attacks work on you personally.
It’s all to take our minds off of the spiritual, and onto the physical because if he can focus you in the physical- you’re done- you are fighting on his battlefield now and he has all of the advantages.
This works itself out on the inside of us also when we allow the devil to influence how we think and what we focus on.
Science is really advancing our knowledge of how our brains work. I’ve been really studying this in regard to my wife’s stroke, and how to help her get back to normal.
One of the things I read is that what you focus on becomes your reality.
What that means is that your brain rewires itself to focus on things that are important to you, both good and bad.
Let me give you an example- Everyone here has probably had a breakup with someone you cared about at one time.
You remember how obsessed you were initially?
Couldn’t stop thinking about them? Wondering what they were doing. Wanting to pick up the phone and call them, text them, email them…you’d stalk them on their Facebook…all of that stuff?
That’s because your focus on them created pathways in your brain, and changed your neuro chemistry so that attention from that person causes you to feel good. Now that person is gone, and you feel horrible because you can’t feel good anymore.
What is another way to describe this?
Addiction. In this case when it comes to our loved ones, that’s not a bad thing. It’s natural and part of our God given make up.
However, those same processes within our brains can also cause bad addictions. Especially with certain chemicals like nicotine, alcohol, and drugs.
Now think about this- This is also how depression can start.
There can be some genetic predisposition with this that makes you more likely to suffer from depression- let’s just establish that.
However, If you are a person who dwells on depressive thoughts your serotonin and dopamine in your brain will decrease, and your amygdala (the portion of your brain that controls emotions) will be more active, causing both your fight or flight reflexes to overfire (that’s what anxiety is), and your propensity for addiction to increase because you are biochemically desperately seeking that reward stimulation.
I say all of this to show you that what you focus on and allow to influence you in this life enters in thought your spirit and effects the body.
That’s why the bible strongly cautions us to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.
Which thoughts?
Some thoughts? 10%....50%...75%?
No, EVERY thought captive. You run those thoughts through Jesus.
Let me talk just a minute about anger.
Anger isn’t always a bad thing- there are thing we should be angry about.
For example- grave injustice like Abuse of the young or weak…you should be angry about that, and that anger should drive you to action to defend the young or the weak.
But I’m not talking about that- I’m talking about a bad temper.
Many people struggle with anger, and really it’s getting worse. I know I harp on social media a lot but it’s created a sense in many people of entitlement- that they are the star of their lives, and deserve our admiration and worship.
When that gets threatened in any way, they lash out in over the top anger and retribution.
Our modern society is creating angry people. People that are entirely driven on emotion.
By the way- this is deliberate. It’s an attack of the Kingdom of darkness meant to take out this country. Don’t fall for it.
Don’t fall for the fake news on both sides of the political aisle driving us to hate the other side, social issues being blown up into something that makes our blood boil, or divisions within our society that makes us hate our neighbors.
It’s a trap of the enemy to take us down as a people and as a nation.
Back to the personal anger issue-
If you struggle with anger- When you feel that heat start to blow up in your mind and rise up in your heart, I strongly encourage you to stop, take three breaths, and run what you are angry about through the lens of Jesus.
If you surrender that part of you to Jesus- He will teach you and change you to react in HIS ways toward things.
I am speaking to you through experience here.
When I was young, I was bullied a lot. I was a welfare kid, short, very shy and socially awkward, and a huge target of bullies.
My dad decided to fix that in me. He brought me to a martial arts tournament and got me involved in martial arts- Shotokan and Shori-Ru Karate. He hung a punching bag in the basement outside of my room that I could practice with. I immediate was addicted- constantly working out and practicing. Within a few weeks, I could defend myself against the bullies and they stopped messing with me when one of them landed in the ER.
The power I felt from that made me obsessed about being the toughest, baddest, don’t mess with me kind of person alive. In essence, I became a bit of a bully.
I wouldn’t target you to pick on you, but Shoto-Kan karate has an oath that says I will use my skills only to defend any attack against me, my honor, or my loved ones. I took that honor thing a bit far in that any insult, any physical aggression against me or those I love would be met with overwhelming force back at you.
I carried that attitude and anger into young adulthood, and the military made it even worse.
I now call that version of myself evil John as a joke. He’s still there, just shackled and locked in a dungeon somewhere- chained under the authority of Jesus Christ.
That part of me that needed to be harnessed was done so through yoking myself to Jesus. I’ve learned to harness that side of me and make it obedient to Christ.
Someone at work just asked me- how do you stay so calm when we have a patient who is screaming the most profane insults, kicking, punching, spit, biting.
I take my immediate thoughts of wanting to deliver immediate physical repercussions, filter them through the nature of Jesus Christ, and out comes a spiritually pure response.
I don’t share this to have you look at me to say Ya John, but to show you that even a person with a horrible temper can change if you just stop and let Jesus be in control of your emotions and actions.
We learn this from taking up the Yoke of Jesus Christ-
II. Yoke of Christ
When we talk about taking up a yoke, I know many of you might be thinking,
“I don’t need another thing to carry in my life. I have enough, and frankly what I have is too much already.”
But that’s the beauty of this yoke.
I mentioned earlier in the message of how a farmer would train his young oxen to accept the yoke.
They would team the young oxen with an older, mature, and well trained oxen to teach them how to function as a team. (refer to picture)
Here is the thing- the older oxen took most of the weight of that team in the beginning- he was bigger, stronger, had the most muscles in the right areas, and even had protective layers of skin that developed where the yoke was resting on them so they didn’t even notice it there.
The younger ox just was along for the ride until they also developed muscles, protective layers of skin, and the knowledge to know when and how to pull, and MOST IMPORTANTLY-to quit fighting against the yoke.
That’s where many of our problems come from.
I’ve met Christians, who throughout their whole lives, fight against the yoke.
“Pastor John, I can’t help it. I’m an angry person and it’s just how God made me”
No, that’s just how life made you, and poor examples and poor choices in your past wired you that way.
But Jesus is an expert in fixing our broken wiring.
But, we have to be willing to be yoked.
Young Oxen will bellow and kick and fight to get out of that yoke.
Most of us bellow, and kick, and fight the yoke of Jesus.
But you know what, if you will submit, and follow Jesus and let him train you and carry that yoke until you develop your spiritual muscles- you will know victory over those parts of your personality that you are constantly repenting about.
Just like that young oxen.
Can I just put a plug in for discipleship for a minute- after all, that’s what this series is about.
Older men and woman- you are the experienced people that God is calling on to befriend younger people. You are the ones that teach the younger people how to follow Jesus just by example.
It’s not just me, but the entire church family’s job to help young people learn to carry the yoke so to speak, so just be in prayer about who you can come beside and help them learn to walk with Christ.
Because when we learn to take up this yoke, and tie ourselves to Jesus and walk beside HIM
We will find rest for our souls
III. Rest
A. Souls- the combination of spirit and body
Jesus told us in this verse from Matthew- he is that elder oxen. He begs us
Learn from me-
Watch me as I serve God. Observe my life, do as I do until someday you become that elder oxen, teaching the next generation how to follow Christ.
By the way- just a word to the elder oxen here-
It won’t be the same way you followed Christ.
It might look different because this generation is different. Our job is not to clone ourselves in the younger generation, but to instill in them the eternal truths we have come to embrace, teach them the proper doctrine that the bible teaches us, it will form a spiritual fence line that will keep them spiritually safe.
And then release them to follow Christ.
The final thing I want to stress this morning is Jesus’ teaching that
29b I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Even as we mature, he is carrying most of the weight.
If you feel too much weight in your life today, and it’s making you stressed, crabby, and miserable, ask yourself a question, and then pose this question to Jesus-
Are you carrying the wrong yoke? Have you taken upon yourself a weight that God never intended you to carry?
The enemy of your soul is a master counterfeiter, and he may have convinced you that you need this thing you are carrying in order to survive, but in reality, it’s what is killing you from the inside out.
Let’s all rise
As we end with communion, I’d like everyone to ask the power of God to search you and know you this morning, and reveal those things in your life that are holding you hostage to fear, to doubt, to unbelief.
Those three things will always cause fruits of anger, despair, and hopelessness.
If you keep holding on to these things, there is a consequence given:
Isa 30:15
15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
Altar Call/Communion
