TAKE MY YOKE: Learning From Jesus

SLIDE: Scripture Matthew 11:29

Matthew 11:29 (NLT)

29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

SLIDE: Welcome Home

SLIDE: Sermon Title

Introduction

Welcome home church, I’m so glad you’re here today as we continue on in our series, Discipled… And if that’s a new word to you, or one you’ve heard tossed around in church, it simply means to be a student or a learner. If you want to take it a step further,

SLIDE: Christian Discipleship

“Christian discipleship connotes a relationship with a master teacher, following them, and adhering to their way of life.” [1]

For those who follow Jesus, the call to discipleship is two-fold. It's about leaving behind what you know, and it's also about embracing the incredible rewards that come from following Jesus. It’s about leaving everything behind, walking away from your proverbial fishing nets, and embracing a new purpose and call.

This can be an overwhelming prospect for folks, but as we spoke last week,

“The demands of following Christ will cost you everything. But you gain far more than you give up. You give up dirt for diamonds.” (Steve Lawson)

The truth of the matter is that you gain far more than diamonds in this exchange, you get Jesus. And as we’ll see today, His yoke is easy, and His burden is light; He’s the good shepherd.

Dane Ortlund says:

“If we are asked to say only one thing about who Jesus is, we would be honoring Jesus’s own teaching if our answer is, gentle and lowly.” This is who He is, at the core, and we’ve got so much to learn from Him.

Main Teaching

SLIDE: Do you ever feel like this? — Burdened Picture

To begin, let’s take a moment to read Matthew 11:28-30 together…

Matthew 11:28–30 (NLT)

28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Our passage begins with a familiar invitation from Jesus. He invites those listening to come, just as He did when He called Peter, Andrew, James, and John in Matthew 4 last week. And this one fact is so important that we need to stop and recognize that the call to discipleship is an invitational one.

SLIDE: Invitation to Discipleship (with 2 bullets)

The Invitation to Discipleship

What does it mean that Jesus invites us to follow Him as opposed to demanding it? What does it say about Him that He is not a King of coercion but one of invitation? This aspect of discipleship is a central theme in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. When Jesus says, "Come to me," He's extending a hand. He’s offering an invitation to discipleship, to a life of following Him, learning from Him, and finding rest in Him.

In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ, but an invitation Christ makes to us. We are called to walk with Him, to learn from Him, to share in His mission and purpose."

This is the nature of Jesus' yoke. He welcomes others to walk with Him, to learn from Him, and to share in His mission and purpose.

SLIDE: Invitation 1 - Open to Everyone

This invitation is open to everyone:

As seen in the gospels, this invitation is open to everyone. Jesus doesn't specify a particular group of people. He doesn't say, "Come to me, all you who are righteous and holy." He doesn’t say, “Come to me, all who volunteer in the children's ministry and tithe regularly.” In fact, in the parable of the wedding banquet Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused… THEN he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” Invite anyone you find… That’s the heart of the kingdom.

SLIDE: Invitation 2 - Personal

The invitation is also a personal one:

The invitation is also a personal one. Jesus says, "Come to me." He doesn't say, "Come to a set of rules," or "Come to a religious system," or "Come to a church." He says, "Come to me." This underscores the relational nature of discipleship. It's not about adhering to a set of doctrines or performing a set of rituals. It's about coming to Jesus, knowing Him, loving Him, and following Him. Discipleship is about relationship… And it’s one where you’re known, seen, and loved.

SLIDE: Invitation 3 - Weary & Burdened

His invitation is to "all you who are weary and burdened"

Finally, we read that His invitation is to "all you who are weary and burdened." This is significant. It means that no matter who we are, no matter what we've done, no matter how weary or burdened we are, we're invited. We're welcomed. We're wanted. This is the radical inclusivity of Jesus' invitation to discipleship.

Are You Weary?

SLIDE: Are you weary? — Weary Picture

Maybe the question isn’t Are you weary, but should be, how weary are you? How beat up and tired are you from all the striving and seeking? How nice does a little rest sound? Jesus knows, He sees, and He understands. In fact, just before our passage in Matthew 11:28-30, we read in verse 27, “All things have been committed to me (Jesus) by the Father” In our context today this means that all the weary followers, all of us have been committed to Jesus. And as we just discussed, what does HE do with them? What does He do with us? He invites us into a relationship of discipleship with Him…

He is gracious and says, "I will give you rest." He doesn't say, "Earn your rest," or "Work for your rest." He says, "I will give you rest." This is grace; It's unmerited favor. It's a gift. And it's at the heart of Jesus' invitation to discipleship. We don't come to Jesus to earn anything. We come to receive. We come to receive His grace, His love, His mercy, His rest. We come to HIM.

SLIDE: The Invitation

In all these ways, Jesus' invitation to discipleship is a beautiful and profound call to a life of faith, hope, love, and rest. It's a call to come to Him, to learn from Him, to find rest in Him. It's a call to surrender our heavy loads and take on His yoke, which, as He promised, is easy and light. It’s not another heavy burden that we need to saddle onto an already overloaded pack…

When I became a believer in 1976, and recieved my invitation from Jesus’ to be a disciple; I knew I would need to go to college. I needed college to learn about the Bible, Theology and much more. You see I was not raised in the Church and I was totally ignorant of Christian thought & the Bible. (Parenthetically: I have learned that many person raised in the Church are also ignorant of Christian thought & the Bible.)

There was a major obstetrical to going to college: While in high school I was bored to dead by school, because it did not challenge me. I also skipped high school at. As a result my GPA was a ‘D’, and I was ranked about 654 out of 660 students. Truly, I should not have been graduated from high school at all. Further, I dropped out of a previous college. This on the surface: Does not a college student make.

I traveled to Taylor University in the fall of 1977 to seek enrolment and financial help. Now if you remember my story from last week, you may be asking why I needed financial assistance. Simply, I squandered all my earnings. I was able to meet with the Director of Financial Aide Blair Dowden. We talked for several hours and became friends. He told me he had some ideas of how he might be able to help. He asked me to give him a few months to see what he could work out to help me. I went back to Virginia with nothing firm to expect.

Two months later I recieved my acceptance letter to attend Taylor University. Inside was also a handwritten note from Blair which read:

Rich,

I have worked out a financial package for you that will give a full package. This is due to a generous couple that started scholarship to pay for the tuition room & board in honor of their deceased son who died before finishing here at Taylor. As long a you keep your grades up the scholarship is awarded to you until you graduate.

Your friend,

Blair

I started at Taylor for the Spring term of 1978. By the way, when I headed to Taylor to start it was during the blizzard of 1978. That adventurous is a story for another time.

It if had not been for Christ’s invitation to transformation, along with His gentle & lowly manner I would not be here today. You see Christ has been with me every step of my life in incredible ways that I too many to number today. As a result, I now find His shared yoke sustaining me to be able to minister to you all today.

Now let’s shift our focus to the nature of Jesus’ yoke.

The Nature of Jesus' Yoke

When Jesus speaks of His yoke being easy and His burden being light, He is using a metaphor that His audience would have readily understood. In the agricultural society of His time, a yoke was a wooden beam normally used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs. In this context, Jesus is inviting us to join Him in His work, to walk alongside Him, sharing in His mission and purpose.

SLIDE: Shared Burden

The life He calls us to may not be free of challenges or hardship, but it is a life where burdens are shared and therefore, lighter. We are not alone in our struggles. Jesus is with us, sharing our burdens, giving us the strength to overcome.

This is the nature of partnering with Jesus and being part of a community where we, “carry one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

His yoke is not one of oppression or coercion, but rather one of grace, love, and freedom. It is a yoke that brings us into a relationship with Him, where we learn from Him and grow in our understanding and love for God. It is a yoke that aligns our hearts with His, that guides our steps according to His will, and that empowers us to live a life of purpose and meaning.

Ultimately, as we take on His yoke, we are not left unchanged. We are molded, shaped, and transformed into His likeness. That’s what happens when you journey so close to another. That’s what happens in close proximity and relationships. You begin to see the world through His eyes, to love as He loves, to serve as He serves. His yoke is not a burden, but a tool of transformation.

As we walk with Him, we find that His yoke fits us perfectly, enabling us to fulfill our God-given purpose with joy and ease. He is a good shepherd, and He knows His flock.

Conclusion

The Good Shepherd

Read John 10:11

John 10:11 (NLT)

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.

SLIDE: HIS Invitation

Jesus has traded His life for ours and He’s invited us to Come…

His invitation is one of relationship, transformation, and purpose. It is a yoke that is easy and light, not because the work is easy, but because we are doing it in partnership with HIM, empowered by HIS grace and love.

As Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

His invitation goes out to all of us, every weary and burdened soul here today. Come, He says, and find rest. Come, and learn… He is gentle and lowly, kind and full of grace.

SLIDE: Multi-Step Process

Learning from Jesus is a multi-step process;

>> 0 — We respond to the invitation

>> 1 — We admit that we’re over-burdened and needy

>> 2 — We accept His “yoke.” We hitch our lives to His, and we live in tandem with the savior of humanity.

SLIDE: Stay Hitched

Pray, read the Word, join a church community, and serve others. These are all ways that we learn from and walk with Jesus. Through the good times and the bad, we stay hitched to Christ… our gentle and lowly King.

Let's pray together.

Prayer:

“Lord, we are often overburdened and needy. Thank you for inviting us into a relationship with you. Thank you for giving your life so that we might have eternal life. You are truly the Good Shepherd and we commit my life to learning from you.”

AMEN

[1] Accessed here; https://seminary.grace.edu/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-christian-discipleship/