Under His Yoke 1973

From Hebrews chapter 4, verses 9 and 10. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

One of the most beautiful words in all of scripture is that word rest. When the soul has finally come to the end of its own restlessness, its burdens, its labors, its anxieties, its endless chasing from one disappointment to another, and has at last come in to the rest of God. Now God's rest is something much, much more than being able to sit down and take it easy.

So often when we're, you know, feeling physically tired, we just think, you know, heaven would just be wonderful to sit on a cushion and take it easy. But a man in a prison cell can sit down on his bunk anytime he wants to, but he has no rest. And an old woman in a convalescent home sits from morning till night, but her troubled mind knows nothing but anguish and sorrow and labor.

And how many people who appear, how many of us who seem on the surface to have things pretty much together, are in fact inside all the time in the womb, all the time, you know, unsettled, burdened. Even people who have in fact tasted the mercy of God in the blood of Jesus Christ, are so often down under the surface, you know, just heavy laden and their minds are burdened down and their spirits are just weary and they're just weighed down with a ton of all kinds of troubles and anxieties and worries. And they know from this that whatever other blessings they may have received from the Lord, they have not yet found God's rest as their abiding place.

And there's no point in deceiving ourselves and telling ourselves that it's there when it isn't. If we don't have that rest, then we don't have it. You know, if that peace of God just isn't there, then it's much better for us to admit that this is so, that this is lacking in our lives, and to go seeking it.

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Now, it's there, we know it's been promised to us, and we even know where to go to get it. And how often, you know, we've gone to Jesus for all kinds of blessings and received them, forgiveness, healing, insight, wisdom.

But have we specifically gone to Jesus for the rest of God? Now, we've heard him inviting us to come and receive this again and again and again, but have we ever really answered? Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me. For I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.

And Jesus does inside the soul of a man or woman who will allow this to happen, the very thing that he did on the Sea of Galilee on that stormy night. He says to the storm inside your heart, peace be still, and it ends. And no matter how the storms outside you continue to rage and get worse, inside, once you have that peace, once you've come into God's rest, once you've been delivered from your own burden, you can take anything.

It's like having two tongues lifted off your back, and for the first time in your life, you're able to straighten out the strain that's gone, the anxiety, the heaviness. And right in the middle of all kinds of wars that are going on in our circumstances, our spirits are filled with the very peace of God. And this is something that you don't have to wait for for years and years.

You don't have to learn some kind of complicated mystical technique. Anybody in this gathering right now who is weary and laboring and heavy laden in his soul, and God knows that there are many here like that, Jesus says to you, come to me. I will give you rest today, this very hour.

But the place where we find this rest is the very last place we would expect to see it. To find this rest of God, to be delivered from the burden that is on our soul, we have to take on still another burden. We have to come under the burden of Jesus' yoke.

And that yoke looks heavy. It's one of those heavy wooden things that link two oxen together for labor. Jesus is under one side of it already, and now he invites you to come under the other side.

Take my yoke upon you, learn from me. For I am meek and lowly of heart, and you'll find rest for your soul. My yoke is easy, my burden is light.

And we say, but Lord, I thought you'd at least let me sit down on this grassy riverbank for a while and just relax while you teach. Lord, I was hoping that maybe you'd let me sit in the boat and unwind for a while and listen to your words. Don't you see, Lord, I'm just too tense.

You know, my nerves are too keyed up. I'm not ready to come under the yoke with you. And he says, but if you sit on the riverbank, you'll still have your burden.

And if you sit in the boat, your spirit is still going to be weighed down. You will not be delivered from your burden until you come under this yoke with me. And there are so many people who could have it, who have never really tasted the rest that is of God, because they are afraid of Jesus' yoke.

They're afraid that if they get under the yoke with him, they're going to be tied down. So they continue to walk around staggering under the weight of burdens of flesh and self that are a million times heavier than his. The message of God to us in this place today is that if we really want to know God's peace and truly want to come into the rest that is of God, we come under the yoke with Jesus.

Come under my yoke. Take my yoke upon you. This is the only way.

First, our souls will be at rest in God when we are with you under the yoke of meekness. Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. When we are with Jesus under the yoke of meekness, we are instantly delivered from that staggering burden of our ego.

And what a burden it is to all the time be worried about whether we're getting enough respect, whether we're being taken seriously, how we look, whether we're living up to our heavy reputation. But when we get under this yoke with Jesus, all that just falls away. It doesn't matter anymore because my goal is no longer to be important, but to be meek.

And my teacher is none other than Jesus himself. What a relief. No longer to have to be worried about my ratings.

No longer to have to be defending myself before men. I don't anymore have to spend half my day polishing my image. I'm walking side by side under the yoke with the lowliest man who ever walked this earth, who is none other than my Lord and my God.

That's divine rest, and that's the beginning of all peace. Secondly, our souls will be at rest in God when we are with Jesus under the yoke of the cross. When I am with Jesus under the yoke of the cross, then I'm delivered from the burden of life itself.

I no longer have to be alive, come alive, prove that I'm alive. He who finds his life loses it, and he who loses his life for my sake finds it. When I'm under his cross, I'm dead.

I'm crucified with Christ. I'm free from myself. I no longer have to go around proving to everybody that I'm really alive.

The only life I now have is his. And the only burden on my shoulder now is the burden of walking with my Lord in the will of the Father, even unto death. And that burden is so much lighter than the burden of going my own way.

Now the cross is not gloom and sadness. It's liberty and it's unspeakable joy. You don't have to be afraid of it.

It can't do you anything but good. Far be it from me, says Paul, to glory except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. Now I'm set free from the hassle of proving to anybody that I'm really a Christian or anything else.

That's all been taken care of. I don't have to worry about death. I don't have to be afraid of failure.

I don't have to be afraid of oblivion because all that's happened already. I'm dead. As far as the world is concerned, I'm already a failure and I'm already in oblivion.

I've been covered by the hand of God. Praise God for that. And so now I can get on with the work of God.

Next. Our souls will be at rest in God when we are with Jesus under the yoke of labor. The minute we come under the yoke of his labor, we are set free from the burden of our own labor.

I no longer have to work to get to heaven or work to, you know, ease up my guilt or work to build some little kingdom of my own to prove to myself that I'm really getting somewhere or rack my brains to figure out the way I can be as lazy as possible. But now I work side by side with my Lord and it's joy all the way. My meat and drink, says Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night comes when no one can work. I sent you to reap that which you bestow no labor on.

Others have labored and you've entered into their labors. And so we don't just come to church and Bible studies and prayer meetings. We go out and labor in the harvest.

We preach the gospel. We heal the sick. We make disciples.

We feed the hungry. We clothe the naked. We visit the shut-ins.

We get down on our knees and pray for more laborers. We lift up before the throne the souls of men and intercede for them. And that's the hardest labor of all.

And as we do this, the more diligent we are in the labor God has given us, the more of God's rest we experience because we are in fellowship with Jesus all the way. If we're really working with him, we don't get tired. Does your heart get tired? Because it beats all the time? Not if you're healthy.

And finally, our souls will find rest in God when we are with Jesus under the yoke of anguish for Zion. Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you, how often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not. And he drew near to the city, and when he saw it, he wept over it.

Would that even today you knew the things that belong to your peace, but now they're hid from your eyes. Does Jesus have to weep over Jerusalem at all? Over the church? Over Israel? When we come under the yoke with him, we begin to weep too. There's something's wrong with these Christians who are forever happy.

No, be happy, that's wonderful. Praise God, that's wonderful. But if you can look out over the church and still be happy, something's wrong with you.

You will weep. You will get a taste of the hurry that our Lord experiences, even at this moment really, over the willfulness and pride that blinds the eyes of the church on earth. And as you share that burden, you are, praise God, delivered from your own burden of self-pity.

When you start to weep for Zion, when you really begin to care what's going on in the church, that's painful. God lays on us this weeping, this burden for Zion that hurts, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as the anguish you've had for yourself all these years. You know, you're going to weep, and you're going to know anguish and sorrow, but it won't be anything compared with the weeping that you've had, the tears you've shed, the bitterness that you've had against people that you blame for your troubles.

Jesus knew exactly what that widow was going through, weeping for her dead son, because at the very moment she was weeping for her dead son, he was weeping for a dead Israel. Now added to that is a dead church. May God help us to get under that yoke of anguish with him and begin to care the way he does.

Yes. There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the children of God. It's there, already there, waiting, if you want it.

And he's saying directly now to people in this gathering right now, the Lord himself, to those of you who came in here today with burdens, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy. Much easier than yours.

My burden is light. Let's wait upon him now in prayer, shall we? Lord, we we've been trying to take the easy way so many times, and every time we end up finding it's the hard way. And we've been running and running and running so many times from what looks to us to be so hard help us to see that this is the way that's the only way that's easy, the only way that's light, the only way that's right and good, the only way that there's any liberty.

And Lord, we just pray that your spirit will move upon our hearts right now and take away from us everything that hinders us from now drawing near, from now calling on your name, from now, Lord, opening our hearts, from now letting go of everything that holds us back, and enable us, oh Lord Jesus, to come under that yoke side by side with you right now and to walk out of here no longer alone, but yoke with you forever. We ask it for your mercy's sake. Amen.