His Yoke

 

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, 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.” (Matthew 11:28 – 30 NASB).

 

When I awoke this morning I thought, “Today is Monday and Jesus loves me.”

 

Every morning Jesus calls us to Himself; to see Him, to hear Him, to touch Him and be touched by Him. To know Him as our friend and brother and our dear dear Lord.

 

I’m reminded of the words in the song As The Deer, “you’re my friend and you are my brother, even though you are a king.”

 

Jesus invites us to come to Him, He wants us to come to Him, He wants us to be close to Him. How close? “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me…for My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 

The yoke, of course, is a double yoke; when we take His yoke upon us we find that Jesus is next to us…and Jesus is doing the pulling, the leading; so indeed His yoke “is easy” and the burden that He has for us is “light.” Might this remind us of, “I am the Vine, you are the branches…abide in Me and I in you” (John 15:1ff)? One of the beauties of learning to rest in Jesus, to abide in the Vine, is that Jesus becomes our everlasting Sabbath: “For the one who has entered His rest has himself rested from his works, as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:10 NASB).

 

When we read that Jesus is “gentle and humble in heart” let us not make the mistake of picturing Jesus as taking the easy way, nor of being someone without character, courage, fortitude, and righteousness – for consider the context of our passage.

 

Preceding our passage, in Matthew 11:20 – 24, Jesus speaks judgment to the cities of Bethsaida and Capernaum. Following our passage, in Matthew 12:1 – 45, Jesus is in conflict with the religious establishment and rebukes the Pharisees and scribes. Jesus’ call to us to come to Him and learn from Him, to find rest in Him, is given in the context of conflict to those who are not self-righteous, but rather to those who are weary and heavy – laden, who are bowed down with cares, fears, and anxiety. Jesus is saying, in part, “Come to Me and stop pulling life’s loaded wagon alone, take My yoke upon you, let me take this weight from you, learn from Me, trust in Me, walk with Me.”

 

“At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight’” (Matthew 11:25 – 26; see also 1 Cor. 1:17 – 31).

 

We hear Jesus calling to us, we see Jesus imploring us, because the Father in the depths of His love has made us hear, made us see; not because of who we are, but because of who Jesus is.  

 

A simple faith in Jesus Christ is not an uninformed faith, it is not a blind faith, it is not a simplistic faith – it is rather a faith that recognizes that Jesus Christ is everything, our Alpha and Omega, our Author and Finisher (Hebrews 12:2); that He is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30); it is a faith that glories in the Lord and the Lord alone. Our faith in Jesus is simple, but it is not simplistic.

 

We come to know Him as “gentle and humble in heart.” O my, that we would portray His gentleness and humbleness to our brothers and sisters, and to the world. Paul desires that our gentleness be known to all men (Phil. 4:5) and that we be peaceable and gentle, showing consideration for men (Titus 3:2); and that we demonstrate gentleness to those who are opposed to the Gospel and our testimony (2 Tim. 2:25).

 

Are we learning the gentleness and humbleness of Jesus Christ as we bear His yoke?

 

Now then, since Jesus sends us as the Father sent Him (John 17:18; 20:21), what will we do when Jesus says:

 

“Dear brother, dear sister; you have walked with Me in my yoke and have learned from Me. Now it is time for you to invite another one to walk beside you, yoked with you, and for you to be the incarnation of My gentleness and My humility; it is time for you to bear the burdens of others even as I have borne your burden. As I have taught you, now it is time for you to teach others by your life, for them to share a yoke with you as you both live in Me. Fear not, I will always be with you – abide in Me.”

 

What will we do?

Not Willing To Go In

 

“But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him.” Luke 15:28

 

Why is it that we are not willing to go in and eat the fattened calf?  Why is it that we become angry at the thought of anyone eating this calf? Why is it that we become angry at the Father when those who have eaten pigs’ food are sitting at the Father’s Table?  

 

What would have happened had the older son gone into the feast with his angry attitude? How would he have affected the joyous atmosphere of music and dancing? Would he have started shouting to stop the nonsense? Would he have sneered at everyone? Would he have shouted, “Get away! Leave the table! The fattened calf is not for you!”

 

Or perhaps he would have been subtle and hatched a plan to set things right. Perhaps the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that he said to his younger brother, “Father made a mistake. He got carried away. He should not have slain the fattened calf, you are not really worthy of it. All the music and dancing was nonsense. Don’t you agree?”

 

“Don’t you agree that we really should lament you wasting your inheritance, your service with the swine, you eating hogs’ food, your sexual promiscuity? Don’t you agree that you were really right when you asked our father to treat you as a slave? Don’t you agree that from this point on that you should really eat outside the family dining room with the slaves?”

 

A variation of the older brother might be, “Well, it’s great you’ve come back and we’ve had the big party, but now let’s look at reality because we don’t want to get carried away. Look at what you’ve done! Do you really think you ought to be treated as if nothing sinful and wicked and evil has happened? Do you really think it is right for you to eat in the family dining room? Do you really think you should be treated as our father’s son?”

 

How is it that we can read, “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us,” (Romans 8:37) and yet not believe it?

 

How can we read, “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the law but under grace,” (Romans 6:14) and not believe it? And please note the words, “for you are not under the law.” How foolish to think the Law can produce obedience.

 

As a friend of mine recently wrote me:

 

“Justification is described in Romans 3, celebrated in Romans 5, and meant to be lived outwardly in joyful sacrificial Spirit-filled obedience among the nations in Romans 6 – 16!!!! GLORY!

 

How have we missed the weight of this?”

 

How indeed?

 

How have we rejected the fattened calf that our Father has prepared for us? Why have we done so?

 

How have we rejected our Father’s desire to live in intimacy with Him as His sons and daughters in our Lord Jesus Christ (see Hebrews 2; John 17)?

 

Why have we rejected our inheritance in Christ as overcomers?

 

Why will we not go into the family dinning room and enjoy the fattened calf and the music and dancing…even as our Father pleads with us to do so?

 

Why are we not willing to go in?

 

O how glorious to begin every day in the Father’s Presence. To begin every day in anticipation of koinonia with the Trinity, a koinonia of joyful obedience, of pleasing our Father and Lord Jesus as we live in the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God – as the Trinity lives in us and we live in the Trinity.

 

O that we would expect and anticipate and look forward to living in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ, and that we would realize that in Christ obedience is normative and disobedience is not normative – and that all the promises of God, in Christ, are “AMEN!”

 

If we are to teach others to obey all that Jesus has commanded (Matthew 28:20), does it not follow that we must teach by example? How shall we teach by example of we are not obeying our Lord Jesus Christ?

 

“Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase?” (Romans 6:1)

 

“May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2)

 

Well maybe Paul had it wrong? Maybe Jesus had it wrong in John chapters 13 – 17?

 

Maybe the older brother had it right?

 

Do we really want to mimic the older brother, and not be willing to go in and enjoy the music and dancing?

 

 

 

 

 

The Nearness of God

 

“But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord Yahweh by refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.” Psalm 73:28. 

O how I love Psalm 73. Verse 25 has been with me as long as I can remember:

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.” (NASB)

My earliest readings were from men and women who quoted Psalm 73:25 as a way of life, and hence this verse, this passion, was planted in me at an early age as I was coming to know Jesus Christ, much as Galatians 2:20 and Mark 8:34ff were also sown in my young soul. 

All the learning, all the education, all the advancement among men and in the church, mean nothing without the cry of, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.” Can we hear the Father emphatically say, “This is My Beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased, hear Him!” (Matthew 17:5)?

After all these years, I am still captured and captivated by Psalm 73:25, I am still exploring its depths, its claim on my soul, my heart and mind – my entire being. 

As I read Psalm 73, I am also drawn back into the early hours of a day in Baltimore, MD in the early 1970s. My job required me to be at the office around 5:00 AM, and my custom was to read the Bible upon arriving at work. This particular morning I read Psalm 73 and I was transported not only back to the Psalmist and his experience, but into the heavens where I saw the psalm as never before. The joy that filled my soul was intense, and as I recall I called a friend around 6:00 A.M. to share my excitement.

A couple of days ago, on the 13th, Psalm 73 was on my reading list. Verse 28 struck me, “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord Yahweh my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.” 

“The nearness of God is my good…” 

This reminds me of Philippians 4:4 – 5: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is near.” 

How sweet, what reassurance, “The nearness of God is my good…the Lord is near.”

To abide in the Vine, to walk with Christ every day in every way, to live in His Presence, to know that He is always with us in a deeply personal and intimate fashion…this is for our good…and so we make Him, we know Him, as our refuge, our place of abiding, our shelter, our Friend, our kind and gentle Shepherd…and then knowing all of this, we tell others of His works, His love, His character, His ways. 

We say to others, “Come to Jesus and experience His nearness, His friendship, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light." And the joy? The joy is inexpressible and full of glory.” (Matthew 11:28 – 30; 1 Peter 1:6 – 9). 

Yes, dear friend, the nearness of God is our good.

Can We Hear Gandalf?

  

On the final page of The Hobbit, Tolkien gives us this interchange between Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf:

 

“Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!” said Bilbo.

 

“Of course!” said Gandalf. “And why should not they prove true? Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!”

 

“Thank goodness!” said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco-jar.”

 

C.S. Lewis with his Narniad, and J.R.R. Tolkien with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, have given us narratives of wonder, awe, koinonia, friendship, and sacrifice. The subtitle of The Hobbit is There and Back Again, a title we could give the Gospel with its Incarnation and return to the Father.

 

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God.” John 13:3.

 

“I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.” John 16:28.

 

In Hebrews Chapter Two, one of the great chapters on the Incarnation, we see that Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters because we have the same Father, and that He came to free us from the fear of death which had made us slaves. What a tragedy that we diminish the work and love of Jesus Christ by not accepting this glorious Gospel of our Father “bringing many sons to glory.”

 

Note the response of the disciples to Jesus in John 16:29 – 30:

 

“His disciples said, ‘Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech. Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.”

 

Somehow, someway, when Jesus spoke of coming from the Father and returning to the Father, the disciples identified with His words; what He was saying was plain to them – what is a mystery to many was obvious to the disciples.

 

Jesus uses the language of sonship, as do the New Testament writers; why then, do we use the language of slavery, of not fully accepting our justification, sanctification, glorification, and being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ as His saints? (Romans 8:28 – 30). The Creation is awaiting the “manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:12 – 23), and yet we are taught, and we teach others, to deny this glorious identity in Jesus  Christ, and in denying our identity we deny our calling, we deny our destiny; we have a faulty ontology, we do not know our Ture Nature in the Trinity; we have a faulty teleology, we do not know our True calling.

 

Jesus not only calls us into His Nature, He calls us into His destiny, His calling: “As You sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” John 17:18.

 

“So Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:21.

 

Give me a people who know the above and I’ll give you a people who are on mission; they learn to “be” the Presence of God in their families, their communities, their schools, and their workplaces. They learn to be the Presence of God in their local churches and the global Church. Witnessing becomes an organic Way of Life because it is who they are, it is their Nature to witness for they know they come from God and are returning to God in Christ. They learn to breathe the breath of the Trinity as they partake of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4; see also John chapters 13 – 17).

 

Hence John can write that he wants the recipients of his letter to “have fellowship (koinonia) with us; and indeed our fellowship (koinonia) is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). Do we have this confidence? That if people have koinonia with us that they will also have koinonia with the Trinity? Did John get this wrong? Do we know our True Nature, or are we sons and daughters living out of garbage cans and dumpsters? Are we teaching others to dumpster dive the way scuba instructors teach their students?

 

Well, back to Bilbo and Gandalf; Bilbo’s great adventure was about more than Bilbo, and our lives, our calling, is about more than us – individually, as families, and as congregations and denominations or “movements.” As Bilbo will realize in The Lord of the Rings, there is more to come, and as the quest unfolds it requires a willingness to lay down one’s life as a Way of Life – knowing that this life is not about us. This ought to free us to lay our lives down for our brethren (1 John 3:16) and free us from preoccupation with ourselves and our own congregations and denominations and doctrinal distinctives – for the prayer of Jesus, and the key to faithful witness, is our unity in the Trinity (John 17) and our love for one another (John 13:34 – 35). As Francis Schaffer used to say, the world has a right to judge us based on our love for one another and our unity…I’d say we have failing grades.

 

“You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!”

 

Yes, this is true…but as we see in The Lord of the Rings, little hobbits can become great deliverers when they surrender to their calling.

 

I want to thank my friend Stan Bohall who, a few months ago, drew my attention to this passage in The Hobbit.