151 - The Yoke’s on You!

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, during the time of Jesus' ministry, the temple played a central role for the hearts of all Jews. And it was massively busy and magnificent, the center of all religious activity. Just glorious. But today in Matthew, Jesus is going to say something very striking about the temple. He says something greater than the temple is here.

Oh, let's find out what that is today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning and welcome to our dining room table. I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim. And this is a lovely summery day and we are hearing outside our dining room windows, occasional lawn mowers, occasional squawking chicken.

You know, that's just the reality of where we live and where we record. So if you hear that, don't be distracted. Don't be distracted. We are, we're at home and we're just opening the Word and looking into Matthew 11. We are picking up from where we left off last week, where Jesus was talking about John the Baptist and then he was talking about being, not hearing and not seeing what's right in front of your face.

Yeah. And all those, all those villages had seen his greatest works and they're still not believing. And he says, you know what, you guys better watch out because you got no excuse. Judgment's coming. Judgment's coming. And other places, Gentile and sinning places would have repented if they had seen what you've seen.

Yeah, famous Sodom and Gomorrah, if they had seen what you had seen, well, look out, baby. So he has just issued all these words of sobering judgment and now he's going to turn his attention, like without missing a beat, turn his attention to give thanks to the Father. So we're picking it up in Matthew 11, chapter 25, and we're going to come to probably one of the most famous statements of Jesus in a very short minute here. So let's just pick up reading in verse 25 of chapter 11, if you're following along. Are you going to read? I guess I will. Yeah.

11, 25. So at that time when he did his rose against Chorazin, at that time Jesus declared, I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise. I see him doing scary quotes when he does that, from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father and no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone whom the Son chooses to reveal him. You want to stop right there? I think we should. Yeah.

I think we should. That's amazing. The wise and understanding and little children, that's kind of a theme in Matthew actually where Jesus says, unless you come like a little child, you're not getting in the kingdom. You've got to be more like little children. But there are those who regard themselves as wise and understanding and they are missing what's as plain as the nose on their face. I was thinking, that is so true today.

People who strut around as being so wise, we call them the elite, and yet things are just going right over their head. And this is happening here in the issue of who is Jesus. Right.

That's the thing. You know, everything's been handed over to me by my Father. I am the firstborn. I'm the inheritor. I'm the one to whom everything is coming. No one knows the Son except the Father. No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. I think that's really cool.

Talk to us about that. I think that's really cool because we talk a lot about the fact that Jesus is our Savior and he is. I mean, he's the sacrifice lamb who absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf because of our sins. But then we forget about the fact of his role in these three years of public ministry of being a light to reveal who the Father is. So that even at the end of his ministry, you know, when the apostles say, well, show us the Father, he says, hey, you've been looking at him. You've been looking at him. You want to see the Father?

Look at me. What are you missing? And so that's what he's saying right here. He came in order to reveal who the Father is, who God himself is.

And you have to notice, too, that that's a work. It's revealing as something that God does, not something that we dig out. So he has indeed revealed himself and revealed himself to little children. So that gives me great hope, too, because those of us who aren't academics or super smart or in the mensa super intelligent IQ measures, it's simple. The gospel is simple enough that we can understand who God is and his love for us if we just take it as little children and turn off the wise and understanding pride that we strut around with thinking we know everything.

Little children. Just listen. You know, Jesus says, and anyone, the Son chooses to reveal him, right? You've got to come to Jesus.

You want to know who God is or what God looks like? Come to Jesus, right, because he's the Word made flesh come to reveal God to us full of grace and glory. So then that's John 1.14. So I think Jesus is just publicly thanking the Father that he's here to make this known.

It's a beautiful thing. And then he just moves right into this invitation, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. We all know that verse, right? Right.

This is the famous one. But we don't realize that he goes there right after issuing this beautiful prayer, thank you, Father, that you've done it the way you've done it. You don't get this understanding by the wisdom of the world. Right, right. And Jesus reveals the Father.

And in doing so, it's not just an intellectual exercise. No. Like, what is God like? He reveals the Father so that the love of the Father, almost as though he's throwing his arms open, he's saying, here's what I have in store for you. Right. And that's what he does in 28.

I might also notice one more thing before we launch into that. This is one of those places where Jesus very strongly self-declares himself as the Son of God. Right, the Son of God.

And it's not ambiguous at all. Wow, Jesus never said he was the Son of God. Sure he did. Yep, well, he did, right here, right here.

Well, let's see. He reveals the Father, and what is the Father inviting us to in verse 28? Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Wow. That just makes me sigh.

You could send hours on this. It quiets my soul. It's so beautiful. Come to me if you're heavy laden, if you're burdened, if you're struggling and you can't catch your breath, and I will give you rest. Yeah. Well, it's a condemnation of false religion at the time, because false religion at the time, and we're talking religious Jews, put gigantic burdens on people.

Huge. Jesus said that to them. Whoa to you who tie up heavy burdens. Oh, heavy burdens. And God says, that is not what I'm about.

That is not what I'm about. So he's speaking specifically to those who are in despair because they're laboring and they're heavy laden. It always gives me... And they think God requires it. They think God requires it.

And you know, they're just... How do I put this well? They're well intentioned and they're zealous, but they're doing all the wrong stuff. Well, that's like Paul said that I quoted last week from Romans 10, where they have a zeal for God, but without any understanding of what God's righteousness is like and how it's received. It's received by faith. And how your heart goes out to people who are just on this treadmill of religion, hoping they're accomplishing something that's going to get noticed in heaven. And God's saying, yeah, that's not what it's all about.

That's just not what it's all about. If you take my yoke upon you, and by the way, a yoke is a device that couples two oxen together. It's a device of submitting and direction and coupling together. Okay, but it harnesses the strength of the animal so it can be directed for usefulness.

Right, right. And so he says, my yoke is not like this yoke that's burdening you. It's a whole different kind of thing. And learn to me, I'm gentle and lowly in heart. And he says at the end of that, if you take on my yoke, you'll find rest for yourself, not labor for your souls. So almost all false religion, as Satan has a finger in, well, he has a finger in all false religion, is all about burdening you with what you need to do in order to gain heaven.

And that's not the true message. And we think of a yoke as a restriction, right, because it ties you down. But Jesus is saying, no, no, my yoke enables you. Enables you.

That's right. And his last line there in the 30s, yoke is easy and his burden is light. That easy word is a wonderful word. It means well-fitting.

Gentle. And so carpenters had to actually customize yokes for specific animals so it would fit their shoulders uniquely. So he's saying here in just a wonderful way, what I have in store for you has been uniquely crafted for you, for your needs and who you are. And by the way, even after that's really well-fitted, the burden is light. It's not burdensome. But it is submissive. And I'll have to point that out. It is submissive to who Jesus is. You're not on your own.

You're not just an independent rogue. Right. It's his yoke. It's his yoke. It's his yoke.

Yeah. But it's a great yoke. It's a great yoke. Well, the idea is coming under the yoke with him.

Right? Being yoked to him enables doing life, enables knowing rest. So he actually is quoting Jeremiah 6.16 here where God says, ask the old ways and you'll find rest for your soul. However, in that case, he doesn't use the metaphor of a yoke like oxen. He uses the metaphor of a road, isn't it? So he says, have you got it right there?

I didn't open to it, but I'm finding it right now. Because my paraphrase, as you're going towards it, is the fact you need something like take the road or stand by the road, or look, but if you take the right road, you find rest. It's Jeremiah 6.16. There it is. Stand by the ways and see, and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it. And you shall find rest for your souls. But it's important here that Jeremiah says, but they said, we will not. Nope. Not going to do it.

Not going to do it. But it's just a great thing because a road here, this path, I mean, you still have to put some effort into walking, but you're going to find rest on this road. And that's what Jesus is saying right here.

And you're moving toward something, right? Moving towards God's purpose. And I might mention too that this idea, this metaphor of a yoke was something that was used with the religious establishment even then. They use that word a lot because they say, you're under the yoke of the rabbis, you're under the yoke of the law, you're under the yoke.

So for them, it meant an obligation to God himself, so you better get serious about it. And constrained. And constrained, yeah. You're tied up and you've got to go this direction. Yeah. So you're under the yoke of the law.

So you better do it all. So this whole idea of resting before the Lord, it runs all the way through scripture, right? But when Jesus said, come to me and you'll find rest for your souls, I was thinking of Isaiah 30, 15, where the Lord says, in repentance and rest, you shall be saved.

In quietness and trust is your strength. But again, the next line is, but you weren't willing. You weren't willing. It's a sad state of affairs that critics of Christianity and who Jesus is look at it as a system of restraints and obligations and burdens. And they say, I want to be free from all that stuff. I want to be myself.

I don't want to, all those rules you put on people. And yet what he's saying very clearly here, and this is not just here, but like you say, this is a theme biblically, is that what God is doing with us as he flings his arms open and welcomes us into his presence is to give us rest and to find life in a rich context, not under a burden. Well the context being rest in the presence and the enoughness of God. Yes. And it goes all the way back to Genesis 2, when it says after God had created everything, God rested from his labors.

That doesn't mean he quit doing anything or he quit being active. It meant he was satisfied, everything was in place for authentic life-giving relationship with the ones he had created. And he's like, everything's ready.

Come to me. Yeah, yeah. And you have to realize too, in an agrarian economy, a culture, you know, the fields were demanding. Okay, well weeds never sleep, says the gardener. So even the entire concept of the nation of Israel that God said, you're going to take one day off in a week. That was wild stuff because if you take one day off, you know, the pests are going to come in, the weeds are going to go up, the drought's going to kill things.

I mean, I have to tend to it 24-7, not 24-6. And so this was a remarkable statement on God's part saying, no, no, no, no, no, let's aim for some quality life on that seventh day and I will take care of things. God gave them the Sabbath when they were in the wilderness, before they were crop keepers, right? While they were traveling, they had to hold still, be still, don't go out and hunt, don't kindle a fire, I'm going to give you bread.

And it wasn't meant to be a burden about what you cannot do, it was meant to be an extraordinary gift. A time set aside to enjoy God's care, God's goodness, God's gracious provision, and to quit taking care of your own needs. Well that brings us to the beginning of chapter 12, because we're talking about rest, and the Sabbath is rest in chapter 12 verse 1, you want to read for us?

Sure. So at that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, his disciples were hungry and they began to pluck heads of grain and eat. Now that incidentally was allowed under the law, if you're taking a journey, and just walking along, you can grab something to eat. Yeah, if I remember right, you can pluck grains, but you can't take a sickle to it, like harvest. Yeah, you can't carry a basket and load it up.

Just take what you need. Okay, verse 2, but when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what's not lawful to do on the Sabbath. They said to them, have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him? How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law, how on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. You would not have condemned the guiltless, for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.

Wow, this is masterful. Okay, so what's really in view here is they are, his opposition are leveling the law and saying, they're breaking the law, the ceremonial load. Can't pick grain.

Can't pick grain. And Jesus, I love how he rubs their nose in this. Wait, haven't you read it?

Haven't you read it? In 1 Samuel 21, where David eats the bread that only the priests are allowed to eat. Or how hard the priests work on the Sabbath in the temple. Aren't they working all day? Because they're offering twice as many sacrifices as any other day of the week.

They are working hard. The number of animals doubles, yeah. So I mean, it's just a masterful reply, because the answer for both of these is, yeah, we know that. So what do you make of that?

Those seem to be exceptions to the rule about the Sabbath. So well, and this is the first of three statements Jesus makes in the book of Matthew. Something greater than is here. Something greater than the temple. Next time we're together, we're going to talk about something greater than Jonah, something greater than Solomon, right?

Something greater. Yeah. So Jesus is actually taking a very authoritative stance right here.

He is. I mean, he uses the scriptures to say, you guys know there's exceptions. But the Sabbath system had gotten so burdened. Burdened some.

I mean, we're talking burdened. I had to go look up a quote I really like. I saw this from D.A.

Carson, who's a theologian. And he found an old ancient Jewish comment, because they themselves were growing tired about how thick and dense and burdensome all the rules were. And this is what the Jewish writing says at the time. It says, the rules about the Sabbath are as mountains hanging by a hair, for scripture is scanty, and the rules are many.

Yeah. And so here we have the opposite of what Jesus says about yokes that are light. This is a heavy yoke right here. The burdens of trying to understand what you can and cannot do in the Sabbath. And I'll tell you, the Pharisees were the ones that put this burden on people. Well, okay, so they're still doing it.

Today. Because we have been on a trip to Israel not so many years ago, we discovered the Shabbat elevator. The Shabbat elevator, yeah. And we were staying in a very tall hotel. And then they had put the elevator on a Shabbat setting, which meant you didn't have to push the buttons.

Yeah. Because pushing the buttons would be worse. Illegal to push buttons. So the elevator would just stop at every floor and open the doors, so you could just walk in and walk out. Opening closed.

And you didn't have to push the button because that would be work. Right. Now, is that an overburden of silliness or what? Yeah, we could quote so many anecdotes about this. There was even an idea that it was you couldn't carry stuff with your hand, but the rabbi said, but if you turn your hand over and carry it on the top of your hand, okay. That is so silly.

Because that's not really work. But so we do this today, we think of a little is good, a lot is better. So right, you know, if I shouldn't eat two cookies, then maybe I shouldn't eat one, right? That's a stupid example. But we do this.

We kind of parse hairs and think, how can we make sure that we haven't even come close to the limit? Yeah, yeah. But what Jesus says at the end of this, after this very masterful reply is, you don't really understand the heart of the Sabbath. You're not getting the heart of the Sabbath. And so I'm here to tell you that there's something bigger going on that you're missing. And in fact, I tell you that something greater than the temple is here about himself.

He's pulling the authority line right here. He's actually claiming to be deity when he says this. Something greater than the temple and what you do on the Sabbath is here. And by the way, the temple at the time didn't have any Shekinah glory, didn't have the cloud, pillar of cloud and fire, didn't have the ark inside.

So man, I'll tell you, that was an empty shell. It was the center of great religious activity, right? And for the rabbis, it was like you better tow the line on the Sabbath, because you know, we got the temple here. You don't even understand the heart of God.

Yeah. Because God is not after your sacrifice, right? He says it in a number of places. Well, he quotes a great one from Hosea. He quotes from Hosea, which says, for I delight in loyalty or hesed rather than sacrifice and faithfulness. Faithfulness. And in the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.

Well, that ark is back to Jesus' prayer that we talked about earlier, that to know God and to know the Son. Yeah. And so he's saying, if you knew this, if you really knew this, you would not be condemning us picking grain right now. Right.

Really, yeah. So, and then he pulls the ultimate trump card at the very end, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. Master of the Sabbath. I'm in charge of the Sabbath, and you guys don't get it. In fact, another place, I really love this in Matthew 23, and we'll get there in many weeks, but he does his woe to the Pharisees. He says, woe to you scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin. Those are seeds.

Count out little leaves. And have neglected the weightier matters of the law. Like what? Justice, mercy, faithfulness, and these you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Right.

So the big things, they're missing the big picture. And he's saying, I'm telling you this because I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. Right. Wow.

I mean, wow. This is a unmistakable, unveiled claim to deity right here. So this is a harkening back to an ancient understanding, right? Even Micah 6, 7 and 8 says, oh, what does the Lord your God require of you but to love the Lord your God, to love mercy, to love justice and to walk with humbly with your God.

Now I kind of misquoted it there. You can look at Micah 6, 6 to 8, because it's about the heart of God. What does God love? Not rule keeping.

God loves a love relationship with you and when you walk in the knowledge of him humbly. Yep. Well, so what can we do on the Sabbath?

Can we heal people? Well, that's the interesting thing that Jesus goes right on from there to demonstrate that he is master over the Sabbath. He went on from there. Here, I'll read it for you.

9. He went on from there and he entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand and they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him? He was a charge. So he said to them, well, which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? I mean, and how much more value is a man than a sheep? So huh, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And then he said to the man, stretch out your hand and the man stretched it out and it was restored, healthy like the other.

The response? Well, the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him. Isn't that absolutely astonishing that their response to the mercy of Jesus to this crippled man is, we've got to do away with Jesus. I can't explain it. This guy who can fix a hand, you think we can overtake him by force?

It's astonishing. But yeah, it is an outright challenge to Jesus. Can you heal him?

Can you heal a hand? Well, sure. And Jesus' response isn't that specific. He says, of course it's lawful to do good. Right.

It's of course it's lawful to do good. Because the root of the Sabbath is God doing good for you. Full rest is rest in God's goodness and grace and that's real rest. That's real rest. And that has nothing to do with whether you light a fire or turn a doorknob or flip a switch.

Right. And think how remarkably uncompassionate they are in this. I mean remarkably uncompassionate. And that's why Jesus goes to the part about, if you had a sheep, if you had an animal that was in distress, are you so uncompassionate you wouldn't help the sheep?

I mean, really, you're not. We all agree you would rescue the sheep. Well, what about this poor man? I mean, don't you have any compassion on his hand? If I can heal him today, why wouldn't I? I mean, it just points out the heartlessness of these guys, who for them, everything important in life was about obeying the rules.

Nothing important in life was about dealing compassionate with people. Which is, you know, in Mark's account of this very same thing, after Jesus says, don't you know what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, Mark's gospel then says, because the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And so they had the cart before the horse. They're like, oh, the Sabbath is this monumental thing, we have to serve it. I serve the Sabbath.

And Jesus said, no, no, no. The Sabbath serves you, so you can taste deeply the goodness of God. And so he heals this man on the Sabbath, says, come and have rest in me. The Sabbath is meant to be an extraordinary gift to man from God.

Extraordinary gift to him. And they have turned it into a demanding oppressive yoke. Well, they've made it a burden. They've made it a burden. The very thing that Jesus says, I'm not all about, I'm not about heavy loads, but this is a heavy load on you.

In fact, it's such a heavy load, I remember reading the history of Pompeii, the general Pompeii, not the city of Pompeii. That's like six, seven decades before Jesus. But he went in and stopped an internal civil war in Israel at the time. And so he went in and took over the temple, and he found out that the Jews have this Sabbath thing. And he says, they probably won't even fight on the Sabbath and defend themselves.

And they wouldn't. So he basically walked right in on the Sabbath, because they would not even defend themselves and their families on the Sabbath. That's how far gone this stupid philosophy had gotten with the rabbis. It was horrible.

It was horrible. Well, are we approaching, oh, gosh. We are. We're really out of time.

Look at the clock and we're out of time again. But I, you know, really, as we're talking about this issue of the Sabbath, and knowing God, if you remember how Jesus prayed at the beginning of this passage, to know the Father, to know God as the gracious rest giver, the one who is interested in maintaining the restful life of your soul in fellowship with Him, not worried about keeping His rules. Yes, it's not about rule keeping. And I've always loved the fact that in that very famous phrase we read, he doesn't say this is rest for your bodies. No. This is rest for your souls.

And that's a remarkably different thing. It talks about not just removing the burden of physical labor, but removing the burden of concerns and worries and anxieties and all those things that pull us around and that bear on our shoulders like burdens. He says, I'm here to take even those off so your soul itself will recline and go.

Yes. That's what Jesus has brought to us in relationship with the Father is that kind of rest. That's the core of the gospel.

And that's what He's saying He came to do. You know, we're totally out of time. We are. Yeah.

Yeah. So this is more than ink. And we're delighted you're with us. And we're going to come back next time and we're going to take a look as the persecution continues to mount as Jesus brings such good news. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorth. And we'll see you next time on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself. And you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. I wish you'd said that with more enthusiasm. What? This has been a production of Main Street Church of rhythm city.