Be With Jesus
Notes
Transcript
Intro: relationships need time! (Marriage example, cherishing that moment at the end of the day w molly)
Series recap: today we’re focusing on being with Jesus
The number one obstacle to our apprenticeship to Jesus: TIME
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. -Annie Dillard
Today I want us to think about our yoke, and the yoke that Jesus invites to have.
Yoke Picture
A yoke:
agricultural metaphor, what was placed on oxen to pull a plough
duties, obligations, and responsibilities
Jews took on the yoke of the law of Moses
the Bible talks about a yoke of slavery
Romans would sometimes make subjugated peoples pass under a yoke, as a sign of humiliation
it’s also used for a rabbi’s entire way of life that he passes on to his followers
Our yoke in the way that Jesus is talking today, is whatever is weighing us down.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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 your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
We ALL have a yoke
We all have a yoke, something weighing us down. What are you carrying?
Busyness
Exhaustion
Anxiety and Worry
Bitterness
Distraction
People Pleasing
The New International Version Chapter 10
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. c Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Self-Pity
Selfishness
The yoke of Jesus => REST
Someone asked Dallas Willard, if he had to describe Jesus in one word, what would it be?
He thought about it for a minute, and he said: relaxed.
Rest in the biblical sense is not the opposite of activity; it is the opposite of unrest. This unrest can be the result of either non-order (when natural disasters strike) or of disorder (when violence threatens our lives and communities). Rest is the result of order. It is characterized by stability and security. Exodus 20:11 reports that God took up his rest when he had completed his work of creation. Psalm 132:8, 13–14 identifies the temple as God’s resting place. From there he brings order and stability to his people, indeed, to the cosmos. From there he rules (Ps 132:14), and among the outcomes of that rule are his care for the people of Israel (Ps 132:15) and the success of the king (Ps 132:17–18).
Recognizing God’s presence and rule are central to discovering a life of rest.
“Come to me…”
Jesus invites us. And when you get an invitation, you have a decision to make. God has blessed you and me with freedom and responsibility…and he loves us so much that he doesn’t force himself or his life upon us. Jesus calls to us, who are sometimes just horribly weighed down, and he says, come to me…
And so you and I, we have a choice. To continue with our yoke, and to keep carrying our burden, or…to choose his yoke, to choose his way of life, to choose him. To come to him when he calls us.
Rob Renfroe writes, thinking about this invitation, he says,
“You are responsible for your life, not your circumstances, not your past, not your spouse—you. You are certainly not responsible for what has been done to you, but you are responsible for how you move forward in life. Believe that; claim that; be responsible for that. You are a human being. You are the most resourceful and creative being God has brought into existence. And you have the ability to make decisions that will overcome your past, change your present, and lead to a future that is good and full.
You can choose to wear a yoke different from the one life has placed upon you. With God’s help you can recognize that the yoke you have been wearing has only made life a labor and a burden. And you can choose to replace that yoke with the one that will bring you rest—the yoke of Jesus.”
-Rob Renfroe
2. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…”
To take upon the yoke of Jesus is to take on his life, his way of life—in the broad sense, this means by taking on the spiritual practices of Jesus. Prayer, worship, scripture, service, solitude.
But one of the core ways to take upon the yoke of Jesus is to learn to stop. To be still and know that I am God. If we cram our lives full every minute of every day with unceasing activity, we will start to think that our life all depends on us, and that will be an extremely heavy burden to carry. And because God knew our tendency to start believing that we are gods, that we are in control, God gave the world and God his people a gift called the Sabbath.
And once a week, for 24 hours, the people were called to stop. Shabat means to cease, to end, to rest. Stop from their labor, stop working, stop buying, stop selling, stop worrying, and simply rest with their loved ones, and res with God. Later this year we are going to take a deeper dive into the Sabbath, but I am beginning to think that this might be the most important spiritual practice for us to reclaim.
Everything around us says we have to do more, learn more, get better, maximize our time and our effort, hit they gym, if we’re a student we have to take the right classes, get the best grades, get into the best school, so we can get the best job, so we can work long hours, so that we can make a lot of money, so that someday far off in the future we can retire and finally, at the end of our life, rest.
But Jesus says, take off that yoke of busyness and strife and work, and take my yoke, and learn from me, and when you look at Jesus, every single Sabbath day he would have been resting and worshipping, and eating with his friends, and delighting in his Father in heaven.
Taking on the yoke of Jesus doesn’t mean doing more—it means doing less.
Jesus here, in this invitation, is inviting us to create time and space in our life for him to work. He is inviting you to remember that you are not God. He is inviting you into a life, where your Father will take care of you because he loves you. He is inviting you, into a life, of rest in God.
3. “And you will find rest for your souls”
Now again, rest for our souls doesn’t mean we cease from all activity every day of the week. No we actually work quite hard, we labor and strive to do good work; if you are a teacher, you strive to be the best teacher this world has ever seen. If you are retired and you take care of your grandkids, you make sure to be the best grandparent that you can be—or to be the best volunteer in the church or at an organization that you can be. Or maybe you are like an engineer or an IT person, and every day you are going to work really hard, to be the light of Christ as you help people solve problems.
But what Jesus is saying is that if we start to live under his yoke, if we have the same kind of rhythms that he had, if we Sabbath once a week and rest in God, if we are rooted in prayer, if we cut out all the things that make us busy, if we say no to all the things that are just distracting us, if we become present to each other and to God, if we take on Jesus’ yoke, God by the power of the Holy Spirit, will bring rest to our souls. Jesus didn’t live with worry, he wasn’t exhausted all the time, he wasn’t stressed, he wasn’t easily aggravated.
He was present, he was relaxed, he was happy—because he was rooted in the love of his father.
And here’s the gospel in this—the yoke we carry, the burdens we carry in our life, which are ultimately the burdens of sin, we take them off, but Jesus takes them on. Jesus takes our way of life, our sin, the burdens of our life, upon himself, and like an ox, he carries the yoke called the cross through the streets of Jerusalem, all the way up to a hill, and he was crucified, all the weight of our sin and our burdens upon his body—and on the cross, he cries out, it is finished. Because in that moment, when he releases his life to the Father, the work is done and we in him, can finally, rest.
Jesus invites you to come to him, so that he can give you rest. He’s say, come be with me. Put your phone down, turn the news off, look up from the little emergencies of your life, and spend some time with me. Let me heal you. Let me change you. Let me be God, and you be you.
Here are some ways we can pursue that this week:
Practical Applications:
-turn off all notifications on your phone
-take social media off your phone
-practice a 24 hour period of Sabbath rest (Saturday or Sunday works, for most of you Sunday is probably the best day to do this)
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” The Message
