In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus offers rest to all who come to Him. then he immediately says, Take my yoke upon you. And that sounds like a contradiction. Rest and a yoke? Doesn't a yoke imply grueling work?
Well, today on Treat for Life, Alastair Begg breaks down this verse for us and explains how this particular yoke. is the means to true freedom. Matthew chapter 11 and verse 28: Come to me, says Jesus. All who labour 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. Come in. In his reflections on the book of Psalms, C. S. Lewis makes this observation.
Christians live increasingly On a spiritual island. New and rival ways of life Surrounded in in all directions. and their tides come further up the beach, Every time.
Some give morality. A new meaning which we cannot accept.
Some deny. the possibility of morality.
Now it is within that context that we come to the Bible always. If you are someone believing in Jesus, you realize that your mind is now being trained according to the truth of the Bible. You discover that things that you have come to hold dear are not necessarily shared by the people with whom you spend the majority of your time. We remind ourselves that Paul, writing to the people in Philippi, who were many of them Roman citizens living in an outpost of the Roman Empire. Writing to them who are in Christ, He says our citizenship is in heaven.
And from it, we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so last time, as we looked at Jesus' invitation, come to me. We realize that in the invitation there is the promise of forgiveness. our past our sins, our guilt wiped away by the blood of Christ. and there is at the same time the provision of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So not only do we have a new status, but we also have a new name and we have a new gifting. He sets us free to be the persons that He has created us to be. That was last time, and this time we come to the verb take and to this straightforward exhortation: take my yoke. Upon you. If it is as sinners that we come to Jesus to receive this invitation, it is, if you like, as servants we come to Jesus.
because Jesus is our Master. If we see the come of last time as the call of the gospel, which we may, then we can consider the take of this time as. the pathway of discipleship. If come is an invitation which covers the entire verses, which it is, then this take is actually an obligation.
So we move from invitation to obligation. What is obligation? We understand it. It is. An act of um being prepared to constrain ourselves by virtue of either a promise or of a contract, in order that we might fulfil a particular course of action.
So, for example, when you get married, you enter into a covenant, you are now obligated. Obligated on the basis of God's pattern of marriage. I promise that I will love you, serve you, so on, keep you, and do all these things in sickness and in health. It's an obligation. It's an obligation that people want to slip away from all too readily.
But it doesn't alter the nature of what is being. called for. The great baptismal hymn, which begins, O Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end. Jesus may reply, Well, in that case, let me tell you what to do. Take my yoke.
upon you.
Now what I want to try and do is first of all consider this this picture, this metaphor, and understand it properly, and then make two observations as it impacts life in the living of it now. Notice that this picture we might say is an understandable picture. We have the benefit of living close to the Amish community, and we also have the benefit of seeing yoke in action in beasts of burden. A yoke. is literally a wooden frame.
are placed across the shoulders of an individual. I immediately had in mind the pictures from the Dutch Impressionist painters of the lady with the milk pails, that she has a frame across her, and the reason that it's there is because it makes the burden easier to bear by distributing the weight on both sides of her shoulders. Yeah, so that she is able to make progress. The same, of course, is true in terms of the beasts of burden. And here, as in the rest of the New Testament, this phraseology, the picture of the yoke, is always used metaphorically.
It is used as a picture in order that we may get the point.
So, for example, when Paul writes at the end of 1 Timothy concerning what it means to be an employee, he says, Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants. When he writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 in relationship to marriage, He says, actually, not just in relationship to marriage, but certainly it must be true of marriage: do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
So the picture is uh uh is understandable. It is a picture, a metaphor of submission to authority.
Now, the people that Jesus was addressing were pressed upon continually by the scribes and the Pharisees who wanted to burden them down. We considered that last time. And Jesus is saying at least this. I know that you folks are carrying heavy burdens that have been placed upon you as a result of the teaching of these religious leaders. I want you to understand that That my yolk It's not that.
And it isn't like that. Because my yoke is easy. And my burden is light.
Now there is absolutely no basis for the idea that appears in commentaries from time to time to suggest that the marketing slogan for Joseph's carpenter's shop. Had, if you like, the sign outside was: Joseph's yokes are easy. It's a nice idea, it's a quaint idea. It actually could be true, I suppose, but there's no basis for understanding that at all. But if the picture is Understandable, the point that Jesus is making is unmistakable.
Right? Because the yogue which Jesus places on his followers. doesn't rub our necks, it doesn't chafe us. It doesn't burden us down, it doesn't oppress us, it doesn't make us drag our way through Monday to Saturday and so on. And this is not because somehow or another Jesus has decided just to lighten the whole notion of the law of God.
The problem with the religious leaders was that they were not even content to stick with the law of God as it had been given. They wanted to add more and more of their own ideas to it, so that the burden became overwhelming. In fact, Jesus does the very reverse of lightning things in one sense when in the Sermon on the Mount, which is there in chapter five, you will notice. that he was tightening, if you like, the demands of the law of God. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder.
That's right. And whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, that everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. He's not making it easier. Don't think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I didn't come to abolish them. But to fulfill them, all the ceremonial aspects that were represented in Judaism have been fulfilled in Jesus in his sacrifice. And the Mosaic legislation has been set aside. And the fact of the matter is that the principles that God demands for his children are there to be applied.
So for example, you've heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has committed adultery in his heart.
So don't let anybody tell you that the story about Jesus and the reason his burden is light is because you don't have to worry about any of that stuff.
Well, the worry is not the right response, but the fact of the matter is, it is there and it is there to stay. Whoever has my commands and keeps them, says Jesus, it is he who loves me.
So if you like, that is a cross-reference to take my yoke upon you. What will it be like to take Christ's loke upon us? It will be to make sure that we obey the commands of Jesus. That was John 14. Here's John chapter 8.
If you abide in my word, You are truly my disciples. and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
Okay? Obey commands. and be free. Obey my word. and discover freedom.
Do what I'm telling you. and find the opening of a great pathway before you. The Westminster Confession helps me in this when it says. For the Christian, The Spirit of Christ Remember, we said that He has made the provision for our forgiveness, and He has given us the promise of the Holy Spirit to live within us. The Holy Spirit lives within us and quotes, enables our will To do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God revealed in the law requires to be done.
So, the Spirit of God at work within our hearts enables us, according to the confession, to do cheerfully and Willfully and freely What God requires to be done.
Now, if you think about this in terms of relationships and the doing of the things that are involved, let's just stay with marriage for the moment. Yeah, you can do all kinds of things, but do you do it cheerfully? Do you do it with a sense of freeness? Or is it a horrible, brutal obligation? Jesus, the picture is very straightforward.
The point is clear. This isn't to be bound and restricted, it is to live in actual freedom.
Now the psalmist in Psalm 119, which we've been reading there for a while, it's a long time in Psalm 119. He writes in verse 44, I will always obey your law forever and ever. Listen to this. I will walk about in freedom. Because I have sought out your precepts.
I will walk in freedom. Because I obey your law.
Now, this gets the hackles up on some people, I know. And I want to make it clear that you need to beware of those. Who, like the characters that we encountered in our studies in Jude? Tell you. And I have had people tell me this.
That they Do not live. by precepts or by rules, but according to the judgment of their own hearts, as constrained by love alone. In other words, I don't pay any attention to those things because I am just moving in response to my own subjective feelings about what would be the loving thing to do. It's a folly. It's a folly and it leads to all manner of chaos.
Well, I think I feel it would be far more loving of me to walk away and leave my wife. Because I'm not a very good husband. and I think it would be a better thing to do. After all, people have often said things like this, and I feel it in my spirit, you know. Do you know what you need?
I won't tell you what you need, but you definitely need your Bible. You need your Bible. Here's Calvin. By means of the law. The moral law of God.
The believer learns thoroughly the nature of God's will. and is aroused to obedience. and drawn back From the slippery path of transgression. It is by means of the Word of God that the Spirit of God says what's in and what's out. And Jesus is actually saying to these people, You are burdened by all kinds of things.
Take My yoga. Not that yoke. Take my yoke. Freedom is found. on the pathway of obedience.
I was uh recalling That the Famous encounter. Uh in Pilgrim's Progress. When you remember, I hope some do, that formalist and hypocrisy Formalist was a religious performer, and hypocrisy was a religious pretender. And formalist and hypocrisy all of a sudden come tumbling over the wall. and they meet Christian, who's on his way.
And you have that great uh conversation that follows. Um A Christian says to formalists and hypocrisy, how come you didn't come through the gate? Oh, they said forget the gate. We don't need the gates. For a long, long time, people have been tumbling over the wall.
We thought we should just come tumbling over. We don't need to be concerned about these things. And pilgrim says to the I walk By the rule of my master. You walk by the rude working of your fancies. You came in by yourselves without his direction.
and shall go out by yourselves without his mercy. Come to the middle. To me, not come to religion, not come to formalism, not come to hypocritical notions. Come to me, okay? Take my yoke.
The picture Is understandable and the point. is unmistakable. We could say more of that. But we won't. I want to make just two observations.
And the challenge in tackling things like this, at least it's a challenge for me, is that you never really know. which direction to go. And so you have to choose one.
So, here, the first observation I want to make on the strength of what we've just been considering. Is to recognize that what our contemporary world regards as freedom. is an illusion. And then, secondly, to recognize that the biblical understanding of freedom is paradoxical.
So on the one hand, this is an illusion. and in our understanding of the Scriptures itself it is a paradox. Let's begin with a speech delivered by the late Arthur Leff. of Yale Law School. Uh nineteen seventy-nine.
Four years before I came here to the land of the free and the home of the brave. This is uh Professor Leff. Unless there is a God who is himself goodness and justice. There can be no ultimate basis for law. For if there is no God, Nothing can take his place.
No human standard No person No group of people No document. is then immune To challenge.
Now, just think about that for a moment. This is 79. And he's essentially saying: if we remove the notion. of the Creator God. who by the nature of his being establishes the framework of morality and of human existence.
Then Nothing will be able to stand up to challenge. And if you think about the ensuing, well, forty-five years or forty-six years or so. You realize just how prescient his words were. You see, because okay, so we began in Yale. Most of us are not going to Yale.
We haven't been there. We don't do Yale law school. But that's not some kind of remote notion that can be safely left in the corridors of Law or in the so-called ivory towers of learning, because that actually impinges on everything. Our views of issues like marriage. Abortion?
Euthanasia. Gender? are tied directly to an understanding of and a conviction about The moral law which is an expression of the moral nature of Of God. And the Bible is making it clear that the law is transcendent. That the law is universal.
Because every person is created by God, every person is dependent upon God, and every person is responsible. To God.
However, Behind a facade of wisdom, the Bible tells us. That we, because of who and what we are as sinners before God, We have rejected God's wisdom. We have rebelled against God's authority. And we have suppressed The truth. Suppress the truth.
Because as we see in Paul writing to the church in Rome, he says, the fact of the matter is that God's invisible reality is clearly known to people. It's clearly known to people. It is not actually natural to disbelieve in God. To disbelieve in God is to go against what we actually know inside of ourselves. Because we're aware of the fact.
That there is not only that sense of the transcendent reality and beauty of everything, but there is at the same time a moral conscience within us. and were hard pressed to discover Where it's from. But where are we?
Well, I think it's not difficult to uh unleash some of the story. Here's the kind of thing that we're privy to on a daily basis, this kind of slogan. Everyone has the right to be who they want to be. and live their life as they choose, without restraints, of any kind. And people say, well, that's that's the thing, that we just uh Uh with uh life and liberty for all.
It's uh it's American. That's how you do it. And we're all free to do that. And unless you're thinking, you might get swept away and you say, well, wait a minute. Yeah, I suppose that's the case.
I don't even know what I'm thinking about. I should just let live. Just let life go. Yeah, go ahead, do what you want to do. And then people say you're such a bigot that you wouldn't do that.
Why wouldn't you do that? What is the basis for your statement? You see, the fact is, again, and Peter's, not in 1 Peter, but in 2 Peter, when he's speaking to these people, he says, you know, you better be careful because there are these people around who promise you freedom, but they're actually slaves of corruption. And then listen to this one sentence. For whatever overcomes a person.
To that he is enslaved. Whatever overcomes a person, whatever controls a person, Whatever is the epicenter of a person's life, the thing that is his bottom line, the thing that when everything else hits the fan, he's gonna stick with this and nothing beyond this and nothing less than this. That is the thing that masters the person. And without God at the center, Providing the meaning of our existence, an understandable discovery of what it means even to be human. Inevitably, other factors take The place of God.
You're listening to Truth for Life with Alastair Begg. We'll learn more about the yoke of Jesus tomorrow. At the very heart of the Gospel is the immeasurable grace of God. And today we want to recommend to you a book Alastair has selected on this topic written by a nineteenth century Scottish minister and hymn writer, Horatius Boner. The title is The Story of Grace An Exhibition of God's Love.
This is a unique book in which Boehner methodically unpacks the beauty and mystery of God's redeeming grace in narrative form. He begins with the purity of Eden, then explores God's grace after the fall, and continues all the way through to the redeeming work of Christ on the cross. It's an engaging book that pauses often to direct us to minute but rich details that even long time believers may have missed. This is a book that will leave you with a treasure trove of new insights to ponder. Request your copy of the book The Story of Grace today when you donate to support the Bible teaching ministry of Truth for Life.
You can give a gift through the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org/slash donate. or call us at eight eight eight five eight eight seven eight eight four. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to us at Truth4Life, post office box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio, 44139. I'm Bob Lepine. Thanks for joining us today.
Tomorrow we'll learn why living without boundaries or restrictions is not the definition of true freedom. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
