Sunday Sermons
The Easy Yoke
The Easy Yoke
“Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left-untried”. So said G.K. Chesterton. If one wanted to cite passages indicating that Christianity is not effortless, one could mention where Jesus spoke of the need to pick up and carry our own cross in order to follow Him (Luke 9:23), or that we need to strive to enter the kingdom (Luke 13:24). Often we have heard about the “cost” of being a real Christian (Luke 14:26ff). Yet there is more to the story.
The Higher Cost
The person who is tempted to walk away from becoming a Christian because of the “cost” needs to seriously consider the cost of not following Christ. Soren Kierkegaard noted, “It costs a man just as much or even more to go to hell than to come to heaven”. Solomon observed, “The way of the transgressor is hard” (Proverbs 13:15). Paul also noted the immense cost the sinner pays in this life (Galatians 6:8), and the life to come (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). Dallas Willard writes, “To depart from righteousness is to choose a life of crushing burdens, failures, and disappointments, a life caught in the toils of endless problems that are never resolved. Here is the source of that unending soap opera…known as human life” (The Spirit of the Disciplines p. 2).
Matthew 11:28-30
“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 our souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light”.
The Weary and Heavy-laden
When Jesus came to this earth He found people to be weary and heavy-laden. Are we to interpret "weary and heavy-laden" as only applying to individuals who had made train wrecks of their lives, such as a drug-addict or someone living on the street because of their addiction? Many people today see Christianity in that very light. It is fine for the person who really needs it—but I am doing all right. Yet, I don’t find most people “doing all right”. Willard notes our being surrounded by many books and techniques that promise self-improvement, marriage help, self-fulfillment, and how to win out over “...depression, suicide, personal emptiness, and escapism through drugs and alcohol, cultic obsession, consumerism, and sex and violence" ---and...an inability to sustain deep and enduring personal relationships” (p. xii). As we pick up the Bible, we find that these epidemics have always existed. The world that is not listening to God is one of darkness (Acts 26:18; Romans 1:29-32). Just watch a sampling of any media form today and you will quickly see the darkness. The problem for this darkness is obviously a spiritual one, rather than a purely financial one—since it exists in a very prosperous nation. Thus the cure must be spiritual as well. Ponder that for a moment. We live during a time of great material wealth and opportunities for learning—yet exist in a world of incredible spiritual darkness.
I Will Give You Rest
“No one denies that we would be far better off and our world an immeasurably better place, if we were to conform in deed and spirit to who He is and what He taught” (Willard p. 3). How true. At the end of the day we all know, even non-Christians know, that the world would be a better place if everyone behaved like a Christian. So most people have already conceded Jesus’ claim here. Yes, I will have a better marriage, life, etc…if I follow the principles that Jesus taught. Yes, I will be happier if I learn to forgive, practice gratitude, give all my worries to God in prayer and live a clean life. The world concedes in this point in the fact that even the world endorses, admires and encourages the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).
So Why Do People Balk?
- Too many people, even people who profess to be Christians, have the attitude that the teachings of Jesus are an impossible ideal, an ideal to which we can never attain. We have been falsely told that salvation is all of grace, that there is nothing we can do, so that obedience to Jesus is not necessary. “And it is too hard, anyway; it cannot be expected of us, much less enjoyed by us” (Willard p. 3). Jesus would disagree, for He expected us to obey Him (Matthew 5:20; 7:24; John 14:15; Luke 6:46).
- It is easy to become stubborn and think that this time around a particular sin will offer the “rest” that it has never delivered in the past. Don't be fooled.
- The devil seeks to persuade us that a half-hearted effort at being a Christian will deliver the same level of rest—that there are less life-altering shortcuts to God’s blessings.
“Come…Take…Learn”
The choice is yours. God is not going to force us to come, that would be meaningless, and He is certainly not going to simply throw the yoke upon us like a lasso. Coming, taking, and learning must be our conscious, heartfelt decision and I think too many people are simply standing and waiting for God to do something for them so they won’t have to make the decision.
“Learn from Me”
When I was a child I remember seeing a baseball player on television and trying to mimic his batting stance. How disappointing to realize my adopting that stance in a game did not of itself produce the results for me that it produced for that professional player. Willard reminds us, “The star performer himself didn’t achieve his excellence by trying to behave in a certain way only during the game. Instead, he chose an overall life of preparation of mind and body, pouring all his energies into the total preparation…A successful performance at a moment of crisis rests largely and essentially upon the depths of a self wisely and rigorously prepared in the totality of its being” (pp. 3-4). Thus the importance of “learning from Jesus” and seeking to live like Him on a daily basis (1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1). Too often when we fail spiritually we are tempted to place the blame on others, God or something amiss or defective in Scripture. Often we hear the statement, “What would Jesus Do?” But this is only part of the story. We are not going to be able to act like Jesus “on the spot” or in a moment of temptation if we have not been already living like Jesus. Christianity or Spirituality is not something that we can turn on in an emergency.
“It is part of the misguided and whimsical condition of humankind that we so devoutly believe in the power of effort-at-the-moment-of-action alone to accomplish what we want to completely ignore the need for character change in our lives as a whole. The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right…This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality. For example…Others would like to have friends and an interesting social life, but they will not adapt themselves so that they become the kind of people for whom such things ‘come naturally’” (Willard p. 6).
“For My yoke is easy and My burden is light”
The non-Christian is often skeptical of the lightness of Christ's yoke, and the mind of the sinner often turns to all the “Thou shalt not's” as proof that the yoke is a difficult and the burden heavy. Yet Christians who have lived for years agree with Jesus, that His commandments are not a burden (1 John 5:3). Here is what many Christians have learned in following Jesus:
- When you follow Jesus and think and act as He teaches— loving your enemies, forgiving others or saying no to a temptation , it soon begins to seem like the only reasonable, happy and sensible thing to do.
- The more you follow Him the more you want to respond as He responded. In fact, it becomes “hard” to respond in a way different from His teachings.
- Happiness and contentment are not accidents or luck, rather they are the by- product of godly, daily living. They are choices and the result of all our choices.
- When you realize how much sin will ruin your life—saying no is quite doable.
Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.net
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net
