The Way Pt. 2, The Way of the Church toward Jesus

Today we examine the way of the church toward Christ. We know the way of Jesus towards us… but how are we to be toward Him. You might hear a Christian talk about having a relationship with Jesus. You may even hear someone say that they have a relationship and not religion. But, what does that relationship look like. What does our end of the relationship with Him look like? How are we… finite, sinful, and created beings supposed to be toward a holy, soveriegn, all powerful, all-knowing, eternal King- Jesus?

Let’s look where we looked last week, at Matthew 11:28–30 (CSB)

28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Here in this passage we see the way of the church in its relationship with Christ. And…

The way of the church is the way of (willing) surrender, submission, and satisfaction

Surrender yourself completely to God

What else do you have to offer the one and only holy, sovereign God of the Universe. You are all you have to offer. This is what Jesus is asking for when He says “come to me, all who are weary and burdened.” He is calling you to bring yourself and the weight and burden that you carry in attempting to live this life on your own.

Jesus says that He is gentle and willing to receive you. He has surrendered His life to save you through His death on the cross. He then calls you to surrender your life and exchange your life for His.

Surrendering yourself to God is the act of presenting yourself to God. This is your whole life, everything you want, love, own, and have done to Christ.

And you are presenting yourself to God to be received and to be used.

Romans 12:1–2 (CSB)

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

Romans 6:12–13 (CSB)

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.

“Christian health is not defined by how happy we are, how prosperous or healthy we are, or even by how many people we have led to the Lord in the past year. Christian health is ultimately defined by how sincerely we wave our flag of surrender.” - Gary Thomas

Submit yourself willingly to the rule of Christ

Matthew 28 says clearly that all authority has been give to Christ. He declares Himself as our King, and surrendering to Him means submitting to Him. According to Revelation 19:16 Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

He calls us to come and surrender to Him to receive rest, and then He commands us to take up His yoke. His commands are for us to exchange one way of life for another.

Submission usually carries with it the connotation of being conquered or defeated. But, this is not so for the church/ Christians. Christians are willingly submitted to Jesus as king and ruler of their lives.

This is the intent of what Jesus says when He says, “Take up my yoke and learn from me.”

The Christian life is not forced, it has been won. Jesus doesn’t subject us to rule against our will and wants. He has loved us and won us through His death on the cross. We claim Jesus, we acknowledge His rule over us and re-arrange our lives accordingly.

We will talk more about this next week in detail when we examine the way of the church in the world. But, for today, we must make note that when we submit to Christ, we submit to His rule in the practice of our lives.

Taking up the yoke of Christ is the act of joining yourself to Him. You are committing to walking in step with Jesus, yoked to Him.

You are not doing this alone, you are not doing this apart from His help. In fact when you submit to Christ and obey Him you are always pulling with Him in the direction that He is going… The Holy Spirit is at work in you helping you along the way.

True Satisfaction is found in your relationship with Jesus Christ.

Matthew 11:29-30 Jesus says, “You will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The rest that Jesus gives, is found through a life of continued surrender and obedience to Christ.

Striving on your own and working under the heavy and wearisome burden of depending on yourself only gets worse. Jesus is drawing a massive contrast between His way and the way of the Jewish leaders and Rabbi’s.

Matthew 23:4 (CSB)

4 They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them.

Acts 15:10

Galatians 5:1

Every other yoke is oppressive. Every other burden is heavy. The lawyers of the temple were adding to the load for the people of God and robbing them of the freedom and joy that comes from the Lord.

Unlike the burden the Rabbi’s were putting on the people of God, Jesus offers to liberate them from their burden and give them work to do that is refreshing.

This is the meaning of finding rest. It’s the kind of rest that energizes, strengthens, and motivates you. Like waking in the morning and bounding out of bed excited to win the day kind of rest. Jesus promises a rest that satisfies and refreshes your soul like cold water on the hottest of days.

True satisfaction will never be known apart from Christ. Your relationship with Jesus is one of surrender and submission, and in that relationship you find the opposite of what you expect. The work that He gives you satisfies because He satisfies. He is good, and everything that He does and gives you to do is good for you.

Discipleship is about the daily direction of your life, rather than trying to arrive at a destination.

You will never arrive at the point of having surrendered enough, submitted enough, or been satisfied enough. But, there are some who claim to be disciples of Christ who live like they have done the stuff Jesus asked of them. And, because they have done the things He asked they go about their lives as if everything else is up to them.

But, as a disciple- one who is learning from Jesus you are called to daily surrender yourself to Him. As we mentioned in Romans 12:1-2, you are to present yourself to God, and you are to do that every single day.

As a disciple your submission to Christ is every day. Jesus never takes a day off from ruling the universe or your life. Jesus will never call you at 6:00am and say you take the reigns today, I’ve got a lot on my plate. Nope, you are called to daily surrender and submit to the rule of Christ. And Christ rules us by His Word. His Word is the truth and it is the means by which He leads, corrects, rebukes, encourages, equips, and even sanctifies us. (2 Timothy 3:16, John 17:17)

Surrender to Him daily in prayer

Don’t just tell Him what you need or want, take time each day to willingly and verbally yield yourself to Him. This serves as a declaration to Him and reminder to you.

Take the things that come your way as divine interruptions, while at the same time making sure they are not enemy distractions from the work God has for you to do.

Surrender isn’t passive. It’s the daily putting off of the world and putting on of Christ. This is why Paul writes and instructs the Colossian church to put on the characteristics of Christ. In the same way that you must clothe yourself each day, you surrender yourself to the Lord daily and clothe yourself with the way of Christ.

Colossians 3:12–17 (CSB)

“12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. 14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 15 And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Jesus calls everyone us to take up our cross daily and follow Him. In Luke 9:23 (CSB) He says,“If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” This is a daily denial of your wants and dying to yourself to follow Him. The call to take up His yoke and the call to take up your cross include surrender and submission to His will and Word.

Submit to Him daily by obeying His Word

You cannot obey Him if you haven’t heard Him. I have said this many times before, but one of the greatest issues we face here in MS and other Southern states is the number of people claim Jesus as Lord, but yet don’t know much of anything that He is said. Lordship is not claimed, it is demonstrated.

You cannot live surrendered if you don’t live in submission. Jesus calls us to take on His yoke and live according to Him rather than according to the world and our sin.

We have been a given a new life through the death of Christ, and our new life is one of submission to the rule and reign of Christ rather than to our flesh and the world. Romans 6:1–18 (CSB)

What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self, was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace. 15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, 18 and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.

Like Paul says in verse 17 & 18, you have been set free from your sin to live according to your heart by the teaching you were given. This is the teaching of Christ… this is what it means to take up His yoke and learn from Him.

Submission follows surrender as our way of striving to live for Him in the way we have claimed to need Him. We learn His ways, and we live according to His ways, and we do that through our understanding of who He is through the Word.

This is why the preaching of the Word is central to the life of the church family, because the Word of Christ is to be central to our way of life. He rules us by His Word, and His church is shepherded through the daily word and the weekly word.

Spend time in the Word each day as you strive to be faithful to Him each day. Rooted journal, podcast?

Obey Him by choosing Jesus and His ways over yourself or the ways of the world.

The way of the church is the way of surrender, submission, and satisfaction

Your satisfaction will even grow as you grow in our surrender and submission. The work that God gives you will produce good in you.

The way of Jesus is gentle and willing, and the way of His church is through willing surrender and submission, and results in an ever-increasing satisfaction. His work is the work He has saved you to do… This is like the garden of Eden… work is not bad, it is part of what we are created to do… In Christ our motives are redeemed and our efforts are made meaningful. We live to serve and hear the words well done my good and faithful servant…

Come to Jesus and surrender

Leave committed to the greatest satisfaction of your life- living surrendered and submitted to the rule and yoke of Jesus Christ.

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