28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV) -(Jesus)
We live in a world of ever-increasing speed, technology, overload of information, newsfeeds of disaster, fear, and anxiety, and most people would love to get off that merry-go-round! But we don’t think we can; so we count the days until our next vacation or “getaway”, and then post pictures on Facebook from our vacation at the beach or mountains or lake or exotic island so that other people can feel envious and then hurriedly plan their next getaway from the “rat race” of everyday life! And the cycle never ends…
I’m just finishing reading a book that has really challenged me and stirred my soul in this area. The book is called “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry”, by a young pastor in Portland named John Mark Comer. The primary focus of the book is on this statement above from Jesus. I’m going to restate that passage above, one line at a time, and I invite you to slowly read each line separately, meditating on that line for a moment, and then ask yourself “Can I identify with this?”, and “Do I really want the life Jesus is offering here?”
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,
And I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon me 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.
Pastor and author Eugen Peterson, who wrote “The Message”, a contemporary paraphrase of the Bible, translates this passage like this:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me— watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TAKE THE “YOKE” OF JESUS?
In farming, 2 oxen would be yoked together to pull a cart or plow. That would ease the burden on each, and it forced them to walk at the same pace and balance the load and have more energy to go farther. So if you are yoked to Jesus, he will not only share your life burdens, but he will actually carry much more of them than you can, because he is much stronger! Plus, he will slow your pace down to his rhythm and make your life much more restful and peaceful.
But there is a more significant idea of yoke here that we often miss! Jesus was considered a Rabbi, or teacher, and in his day the term yoke was considered the Rabbi’s way of teaching the Torah, the Bible they had then. Not only that, it was his set of teachings on “how to be human” and deal with all the weight and issues of life. Jesus’s disciples, or apprentices, were not only to learn his teachings, but even more importantly, learn his lifestyle as well! Following Jesus can be can be reduced to 3 major goals:
1) Be with Jesus.
2) Become like Jesus in your lifestyle.
3) Do what he would do if he were you!
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. – John 14:6 (ESV)
Notice Jesus is offering us 3 vital things we need, and they all only come through him!
He offers us an abundant LIFE, which begins when we trust our lives to him, and that new life will last forever!
He offers us the TRUTH, which is the Bible, and especially his teachings of what that new life will look like.
But he also offers us the WAY, which is not only the way to connect to his Father, but the way of life Jesus lived, the lifestyle that we are to take on as his followers!
The early Christians were called ”The Way” by others because of the strange, counter-cultural lifestyle they adopted from Jesus. The western church in our culture has lost the understanding of what that lifestyle is and how Jesus invites us to live each day. We don’t live any differently than the rest of our busy, confused, exhausted, anxious non-believing friends!
I hope to begin a series of blogs now that focus on the PRACTICES OF JESUS that allowed him to live a life that was never hurried, but always focused on exactly what was most important, the mission of wonderful, abundant life the Father sent him here to give us! These “practices” of how Jesus lived every day have historically been called “Spiritual Disciplines”, which in our culture sounds like no fun at all, and something we certainly don’t have time to do! So, let’s just fool ourselves and call them the “cool lifestyle practices of Jesus” that can lead to rest, joy, peace, fearlessness, and a way of living that will make us fulfilled, purposeful, and the envy of our hurried and frazzled friends!
I will confess that even as a pastor, I have not been very good at learning and practicing this actual lifestyle of Jesus! My wife was a busy school teacher as well, and with school, church, kids’ activities, and friends and family, I fear our pace of life would be often categorized as part of the “rat race”. Looking back now, I regret wasting too many moments of life on useless and trivial pursuits, when I could have had many more quality moments with my wife, kids, friends, and God himself! And what is life, if not but a series of precious moments that God gifts to us every 24 hours?
Well, I would like to do better at living the lifestyle of Jesus for the remainder of my life, and I hope you desire that as well! I will try to share what I learn as I grow in these practices of life that Jesus showed us, and I encourage you to try that as well. (If you want to buy John Mark Comer’s book, I would encourage you to do that and get a better idea of what I’m talking about.) Here are a few simple suggestions that you may try, to start:
– Try reading one of the gospels slowly (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John), but don’t read it so much for just the teachings of Jesus, as vital as they are. Try reading it as a “biography” of Jesus, and pay attention to HOW he lived every day. How did he focus his time? How did he deal with interruptions? What was the pace of his life? Who did he choose to talk with, and who didn’t he? What was important to him, and what wasn’t? How did he avoid distractions of his culture?
– Try to take a short period of time (start with 10 minutes?), and get away by yourself, away from all noise and people. Breathe deeply and slowly, and focus your mind on the quietness and imagine that you are in God’s presence (because you always are!). He may bring something to your mind, or not, but relax and be grateful that God loves you and wants to spend time with you!
– Ask yourself what REALLY matters most to you in life, and how are you spending your time and resources to focus on those areas? How many activities of our day are just distractions, and costing us precious moments that can never be regained?
Jesus came to offer us a new way of life, a restored humanity, that can begin now and carry on into eternity into the new Earth and Heaven combined in his Kingdom! Most of us are settling for just a tiny fraction of what Jesus came to bring us, and many will miss out on this eternal life completely, lost in the pursuit of this world’s deceptions. Jesus warned us of that:
25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? – Matthew 16:25-26 (ESV)
I’ve lived a wonderful life, and a favorite expression in our family is true for me, “I have been richly blessed”. But, I’ve also missed out on many moments that God had for me, because I was too distracted with the cares and worries of this world to fully grasp the better life he offered, if I would only listen!
I want to finish better, and I hope you do as well! I want to live the rest of my life as close to the lifestyle of Jesus as I can. I can’t do it by myself, but God gives us his Holy Spirit to empower us and help us abide in Jesus.
Won’t you join me? Why settle for only what the world offers, when we can have so much more in Jesus?
I will pray for you on this journey, and pray for me as well! I close with a marvelous prayer from Paul that we can all pray for each other:
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. -Ephesians 3:16-21 (NIV)