Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Our Father, we thank youk for your Word, and we thank youk for Jesus. And we thank youk for the privilege of knowing him and of listening to his words. We pray that by youy Spirit yout will guide us as we look at the Scriptures, as we look at Jesus. Words help us to understand them and to apply them to our lives. We pray in Jesus name.
[00:00:20] Amen.
[00:00:23] Even people who are not cricket fans would probably know who this is.
[00:00:29] And you might be thinking, what on earth has Shane Warne got to do with the passage that we've just read?
[00:00:36] And the answer is very little.
[00:00:40] However, there's just one connection. This was here to prompt me to mention high blood pressure. As you know, Shane Warne's family have set up the Shane Warne legacy and they do attempt to do, among other things, a health screening at some of the cricket tests. One in particular in an attempt to perhaps prevent premature death from a heart disease such as happened to him.
[00:01:06] And it's a reminder to me about the problem of high blood pressure, because, as you may know, I spent a long time in Launceston as a GP caring for patients, and many of them have high blood pressure, including many in this room and including me.
[00:01:23] It's a very common condition and it's a major factor, risk factor for heart disease and stroke and a number of other problems.
[00:01:32] The good thing about it is that it's readily treatable if it's picked up, of course, which is why the Shane Warren family are encouraging screening of people with checking their blood pressures.
[00:01:45] However, another big problem with blood pressure, apart from picking it up and finding out whether people have it or not, is, for me as a gp, it was convincing patients to continue on their medication.
[00:02:02] And I could tell you all sorts of stories about things that patients said to me, which I won't. But just one of the things that struck me when I first started in general practice and I had so many patients with high blood pressure and they'd come in and see me and I'd ask them, how are you going with your tablets? Because I knew this was a problem, you know, particularly fellows, blokes, men, probably less likely, but many people have trouble taking tablets every day.
[00:02:28] So I'd say, how are you doing with taking your tablets? And I noticed a lot of my patients would say to me, doc, I take my tablets religiously.
[00:02:39] And that intrigued me for a while. I thought, I wonder what that means. You mean you pray before you take your tablets? Is that what you mean?
[00:02:48] And eventually I worked out, no, that's not what they meant, they meant by religiously, they meant they took their tablets at the same time every day in a regimented way.
[00:02:59] And as I thought about that, I thought, yeah, that's what religion means to a lot of people, perhaps most people.
[00:03:08] Religion is about doing things by the book, doing things by the clock, following rules and regulations, doing things the right way in an attempt, in the case of my blood pressure patients, hopefully an attempt to bring their blood pressure down.
[00:03:25] But for the rest of us in our lives generally, for many, religion can be a way of trying to do the right thing in order to earn the acceptance of God. And that's what world religions do.
[00:03:40] All the religions, or most work on the basis of, of you and I trying as hard as we can to do the right thing in order to gain acceptance by God.
[00:03:53] But Jesus presents a different perspective in this passage that we're talking about this morning.
[00:04:01] And I want to quote here Tim Keller quoting from one of his books. Timothy Keller died recently, but he was a pastor in New York.
[00:04:13] He says religion operates on the principle I obey, therefore I'm accepted by God.
[00:04:21] But the operating principle of the gospel, that is Jesus is I'm accepted by God through what Christ has done, therefore I obey.
[00:04:33] Simple, isn't it? But it's profound because most religions, and I dare to say many churchgoers and people who might call themselves Christians and, and you and I, even in our lives, we can operate on that first principle, we obey, therefore we're accepted by God. And that means if we fail to obey, we fail to be accepted by God. And the problem is we fail to obey all the time.
[00:05:00] We might occasionally succeed, but more often than not, I know that I fail.
[00:05:06] But the gospel, Jesus says, I, you and me, we are accepted by God because of Jesus, because of his death and resurrection and because of the forgiveness that he offers to us. And because of that, we obey.
[00:05:22] If we fail, we fail. If we succeed, we succeed. But it's not our obedience, it's not our religion that is earning our acceptance by God. It is who Jesus is.
[00:05:34] So Jesus presents us with a different view today.
[00:05:38] And although Jan read the passage from the niv, I do like the way the Message Bible puts it. And I might just referring to this once or twice this morning, but just for the moment, just listen to this same passage in the message translation.
[00:06:00] Perhaps it's a paraphrase technically rather than a translation, but nevertheless, the message says, are you tired?
[00:06:08] Are you worn out?
[00:06:10] Burnt out on religion?
[00:06:13] Come to me, get away with me and you'll Recover your life.
[00:06:18] I'll show you how to take a real rest.
[00:06:21] Walk with me and work with me.
[00:06:24] Watch how I do it.
[00:06:26] Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
[00:06:30] I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you.
[00:06:34] Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.
[00:06:42] So if you're feeling tired, worn out, burnt out on religion or anything else, this message is for you today.
[00:06:56] So take my yoke. I've called it. We could equally call it Come to me or Learn from me. Those are the three themes we're going to be looking at. Take my yoke or Come to me. Take my yoke, Learn from me.
[00:07:09] They're the three themes we'll be focusing on as we go through.
[00:07:14] But I've called it Take My Yoke.
[00:07:17] Not sure why, just seemed like it had a nice ring to it. We'll talk about yokes in a minute.
[00:07:24] We're going through the Gospel of Matthew, as you may have realized by now. For the last how many years? I can't remember. And quite a few years to come. Perhaps.
[00:07:35] However, if you're paying close attention, you might realize that we've actually skipped a few verses. Last week. Stephen Nolan took us through the reference to John the Baptist that Jesus was talking about, and we've now jumped a few verses. But don't worry too much. We'll come back to those in a future Sunday.
[00:07:55] We just shuffled them around, so we'll still get there. But today we're looking at Matthew 11, 27, 30. Take my yoke.
[00:08:07] So let's jump in, look at verse 27.
[00:08:10] All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
[00:08:26] If you look at that and study it, that is actually a rather strange verse in some ways because it seems to be a little bit exclusive.
[00:08:37] Jesus seems to be saying the only people that can know God are those that he chooses to reveal God too.
[00:08:49] Which sounds like some people are chosen by Jesus to have God, to know God, and some are not.
[00:08:56] And yet we've just read the next verse. The very next verse says, come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened and heavy laden and burnt out, and I'll give you rest.
[00:09:08] So it's almost seems like a bit like a contradiction. Jesus is saying, only those that I choose to reveal God to. They're the only ones who can know God. And yet then he says, come to me, all of you, and that's not the only place. We see that in John 6:37, Jesus says, All those the Father gives me will come to me.
[00:09:32] Okay, that's that theme again. Those that God gives to me will come only the ones that God gives me.
[00:09:42] But whoever comes to me, I'll never drive away.
[00:09:45] So how can they both be true?
[00:09:49] And at this point I'm reminded of a guy named John Kidson who died last year. About six months ago.
[00:09:57] When I was growing up in Sydney in the Anglican system in Sydney, he was the youth worker with the Anglican Youth Department.
[00:10:06] And we had a youth camp. Our church had a youth camp, although we used to call them house parties in New South Wales.
[00:10:14] When I came to Tasmania, I had to learn that that was not a thing nobody had. Well, if you had a house party, it didn't mean that it was youth camps. So we had a youth camp. And about that time, I was about 13, 14, recently become a Christian and like many young teenagers, was struggling with this idea of how God could be sovereign and choose people to draw them to himself and yet at the same time say that whoever believes should come and Jesus will not cast them out. I couldn't work out how they could be both true.
[00:10:55] And at our youth camp, he was the speaker, John Kitson.
[00:10:59] He was much younger then, of course, than he is in this photograph, just as I was.
[00:11:06] And somebody, not me, someone else asked him that same question. They said, how can God elect people and predestined people to be saved, and yet at the same time hold them accountable to believe as individuals? And if they don't believe, then that's held against them.
[00:11:22] And his answer, and this has stuck in my mind for 60 years, his answer was, your problem is you're trying to reconcile them.
[00:11:33] You're trying to get your mind to work out how they can both be true at the same time. And because you can't understand how they can both be true, then you're struggling to accept it as a truth.
[00:11:45] And it suddenly dawned on me that that's what I was doing with so many things that I failed to understand who God was. Which is hardly surprising since God's the Creator and I'm a creature. And yet because I can't understand the way God thinks, then our tendency is to dismiss those truths as they can't. One of them must be false, and maybe only one of them is true. And which one? They can't both be true, but they actually can.
[00:12:13] Just because we can't understand it doesn't mean that's not the case.
[00:12:18] And at this point I want to Also quote from C.S. lewis.
[00:12:22] You might have heard of him. He's an older author from back in the 60s, and you might know him, perhaps as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
[00:12:34] When I was a young teenager, I read a book written by him about cosmic space travel, which fascinated me as a young teenager interested in science.
[00:12:45] That's how I first came across CS Lewis. But he also wrote a book called Mere Christianity.
[00:12:51] And we have a copy of this at home. It's actually got. When I looked at it, I found it has Jan's name in it, which means it was probably given to her when she was. Before she ever had anything to do with me. And it came into our household when we were married. That's how old it is.
[00:13:07] And I reread it recently, and it just reminded me of some of the profound truths that he explains very well. And this is a bit of an aside. It's nothing to do with what we're just talking about now, but it's an example of his incisive thinking.
[00:13:22] And in this part of his book, he's called Mere Christianity. He's talking about people, talking about Jesus as a great moral teacher. And he says this. He says, I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.
[00:13:45] This is the one thing we must not say.
[00:13:48] A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
[00:13:57] He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell.
[00:14:06] You must make your choice.
[00:14:08] Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else he's a madman or something worse.
[00:14:17] You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.
[00:14:28] But let's not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.
[00:14:37] He did not intend to.
[00:14:40] And I just like that sort of thinking that helps me to understand so much about who Jesus is. But as I say, that's an aside.
[00:14:48] What CS Lewis did say on this topic of correlating or reconciling these things, he gave the example of.
[00:14:55] Imagine somebody living in a world of two Dimensions, that is, you have length and you have breadth, but no height. It's a two dimensional world, can't get our heads around that, but just imagine it anyway. Someone living in a two dimensional world and you now have to try to explain to them what a cube is, a three dimensional object. How do you explain that to someone who lives in two dimensions and has only ever known two dimensions?
[00:15:27] And the answer is, you can't. That person will never ever understand what a cube is because it's beyond their imagination, it's beyond their experience, beyond their comprehension.
[00:15:39] And that's what it's like for us. God lives in another dimension, not just three innumerable dimensions that we could never fathom.
[00:15:48] So the fact that we cannot understand the way God works should hardly surprise us. That's to be expected.
[00:15:55] And for me personally, I have no problem with these supposed contradictions within our beliefs in that sense, because I don't expect to be able to understand and correlate and reconcile some of these truths which don't always appear to make sense. And it's not just this one about God choosing us and us coming of our own free will. It's so many other things that happen in our lives.
[00:16:23] So the Apostle Paul puts it this way, a little bit more harshly perhaps. Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me, then why does God still blame us? Who is able to resist his will? But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed to the one say who formed it? Why did you make me like this?
[00:16:51] Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
[00:17:02] So we have a song we used to sing here called the Potter's Hand, I think, and it comes from that passage in Romans chapter 9, that as the potter, God has the right to make out of clay whatever pots he chooses to. And it's not for us to necessarily understand all that God does, or even to challenge it, although there's plenty of examples in the Scriptures, especially in the Psalms of David, challenging God and calling him into question.
[00:17:31] And there's room for that. But ultimately we will not be able to reconcile some of those things about who God is, including this one we're looking at in the passage, but we'll move on.
[00:17:43] Jesus says in verse 28, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I'll give you rest.
[00:17:50] And as I said, Before I like the version or the way it's put in the message.
[00:17:55] Are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion?
[00:18:00] Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest.
[00:18:10] This phrase, come to me. Jesus uses it in John chapter six as well. He says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be seen thirsty.
[00:18:23] There's that dual statement there. Hunger, thirst, come, believe.
[00:18:30] That's all the same thing. In other words, Jesus is saying come to me in one half the sentence and the other half is saying believes in me. They're just different ways of expressing it. So this verse is telling us that when Jesus says come to me, he means believe in me.
[00:18:47] That's what he's talking about.
[00:18:50] He's not talking about coming to church or coming to a Christian rock concert or coming to youth group. He's talking about coming to Jesus, coming to him personally. This is about repentance, if you like repentance and belief, turning our lives over to his control, believing that he is who he said he is, even if we don't fully understand all of what that means.
[00:19:17] And Jesus is offering this to everyone who was listening, especially those who were.
[00:19:27] I'll come back to that one. Yeah. Especially those who were tired and worn out and burnt out and exhausted. I'm not sure if you're feeling that way today.
[00:19:37] Most of us do from time to time, if not all the time.
[00:19:41] This is for us.
[00:19:44] He then says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
[00:19:49] Take my yoke.
[00:19:52] I don't know if you thought much about what this means when Jesus says, take my yoke. A yoke is a wooden device designed to harness two cattle oxen to work together and to share the load.
[00:20:07] Jesus as a carpenter would have known a lot about yokes, and he would have known how to make them. Probably one of. Probably spent his childhood and teenage years and young adult years making yokes, among other things.
[00:20:22] And apparently these were made uniquely for certain animals of different sizes. It wasn't just a random template for a yoke, but there were yokes for different types of animals and different types of situation. So there was quite a skill involved in making the right sort of yoke for two animals. And it was a way of allowing the younger, less experienced animal to share in the load and yet have the load taken by the older and more experienced and stronger animal.
[00:20:53] They were made to fit those particular cattle or oxen, whatever they Were.
[00:21:00] And it reminds me of maybe parents helping their children, maybe a father teaching their child to ride a bike.
[00:21:10] You do a lot of the work initially, do all the work. The child does very little as you guide them along. Eventually they start to pedal and then take control. And gradually you can let your hands off. And it's the child initially, perhaps feels like they're cycling. But they know, well, you know very, very well that if you were to take your hands off, they would soon fall off.
[00:21:35] It's an example of what it's like when we are yoked with Jesus. We're all yoked with somebody or with something in our lives. But to be yoked to Jesus is what Jesus is talking about here.
[00:21:51] He's talking in this sort of a context. And later on in Matthew, he says they, that is the religious leaders, the ones who might have led to some people being burnt out on religion, they tie up heavy cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders.
[00:22:10] That's what the religious leaders did. They came up with innumerable laws and regulations, restrictions and limitations and do's and don'ts, mostly don'ts that the people had to follow. And if they didn't, they would not achieve acceptance by God or anybody else.
[00:22:28] So those are the heavy, cumbersome loads. That's the context that Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders. This is what they did. But they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
[00:22:41] So that was the context when Jesus says, take my yoke upon you.
[00:22:47] His yoke was not the same as the yoke that the religious leaders wanted to put on them.
[00:22:54] And learn from me. He says, that's our. So I think I mentioned earlier, the three themes are, firstly, Come to me in verse 28 and then we have take my yoke upon you and then learn from me. They're the three themes. We'll come back to those later.
[00:23:20] So take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. I am gentle and humble in heart and you'll find rest for your souls. This idea of rest comes up again.
[00:23:30] Learn from Jesus.
[00:23:33] Who do you learn from?
[00:23:36] Who do you take your lessons from in daily life, Most of us, many of us, spend a lot of time watching tv. No doubt our lessons are coming from anybody other than Christ.
[00:23:47] Maybe movie stars, maybe celebrities, maybe political leaders, maybe others.
[00:23:56] But who do you learn from in your life?
[00:24:00] If we're disciples of Jesus, we'll be learning from him. Learn from me, he says, get to know me.
[00:24:06] Develop an intimacy with me. We have that privilege as followers of Jesus to be able to have that intimacy with God.
[00:24:14] He is gentle and humble and not proud and arrogant like some people, not mentioning any names, but we see every day displayed some of our leaders.
[00:24:29] And gentle and humble is not always what comes across, is it? The exact opposite.
[00:24:35] But Jesus, the one we're learning from him, he is gentle and humble in heart, and we find rest for our souls.
[00:24:45] He says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[00:24:48] What does that mean? Does it mean that it's easy to be a Christian?
[00:24:53] This is not cheap discipleship.
[00:24:56] He's not saying it's always going to be an easy road. Because we know that for many followers of Jesus, including the people, the disciples that were with Jesus at the time he said this, that was not their experience.
[00:25:08] They had a tough life. As I mentioned in the last time I spoke here a few weeks ago, Almost all the 12 disciples ended up being martyred for their faith eventually, the exception of John, but most of the others did, and many others as well. So it's not a promise of an easy life, but it's a light burden because Jesus is carrying it with us like that senior strong oxen with the yoke because we're yoked with Him. That's why the burden is easy.
[00:25:46] In other words, if you want to be powerful, if you want the power of God, get weak.
[00:25:55] That's what Paul says here in 2 Corinthians 12, 9. He said to me, that is, he's talking now about a physical ailment that Paul the apostle had, and he's talking about that. And he says that God said to him, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.
[00:26:13] Therefore, I'll boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me.
[00:26:20] Do you have any weaknesses?
[00:26:25] It's a difficult thing to boast in weaknesses, but that's what we're being asked to do here.
[00:26:30] Or that's what Paul says he does to boast about our weaknesses. Because when we do that, Christ's power can rest on us. We can be yoked with Christ.
[00:26:42] In 1 Peter, it says, cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
[00:26:48] That's a little bit of what it means to rest with Jesus and to be yoked to Jesus.
[00:26:54] So in summary, three things I mentioned earlier. Firstly, Jesus says, come to me, and that's everybody, not just those who've got their act together or those who've had a good week, or those who've done the right thing. Then you can come to him. Come to me as you are, he says, weary and burdened and heavy, laden and burnt out and exhausted and depressed and discouraged. If that's the way you are, come to Jesus, that's what he says. And then take his yoke. Let him take the lion's share.
[00:27:30] Let him take the burden.
[00:27:32] And thirdly, learn from him. Develop that intimacy with God.
[00:27:39] To finish, I'll put up that passage from the message again. Are you tired?
[00:27:44] Are you worn out? Are you burned out on religion?
[00:27:49] Come to me.
[00:27:50] Get away with me. You'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest.
[00:27:56] Walk with me, work with me, watch how I do it.
[00:28:01] Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
[00:28:05] I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.
[00:28:15] Let's pray together.
[00:28:20] Father, you know the hearts of all of us here this morning. There may be many of us here who are tired, worn out, maybe even burnt out on religion, feeling discouraged for whatever reason. We just thank you, Lord, for this invitation to come to you, to get away with you, to recover our lives.
[00:28:43] Help us to learn from you, to walk with you, to work with you, to watch how you do it, to learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
[00:28:54] Thank you that if we keep company with you, we can learn to live freely and lightly. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
