Jesus invites the weary to rest in Matthew 11:28-30, but only if you take His yoke and follow His way. When you go your own way instead, life gets harder. The host uses the image of a mature ox guiding a younger one to show how staying aligned with Christ lightens your burden.
Welcome to episode 306. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I want to get right into this week's lesson, and it is about Labor Day. This is a Labor Day message because this is Labor Day weekend for me, and it's going to be real quick because I've got my family coming in and we're going to visit and have some time together. So I'm not going to make this real long. Some of you may be going, thank God. I want to give you a quick scripture that I think is wonderful. It's a wonderful promise from Jesus. It's kind of a Labor Day promise, I call it, and I want to read it. It's in Matthew 11. Come to 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 gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And we've talked about these verses before on previous episodes, but I just kind of— since this is Labor Day and I'm praying about what to talk about, I think the next few lessons I'm going to give are on Jesus' return, his rapture, the difference between the rapture and the second coming. And I think that's important. It's a distinction that I think we need as the church. We need to understand. But today I just want to talk about light and easy, that Jesus really did promise you light and easy. And I think there's some conditions, and that is if we get into Jesus' yoke and if we start doing what God wants us to do, or doing what Jesus is actually doing. If we get into the yoke and follow Jesus, he's going to lead us into— the Bible says that he leads us into all truth. But I believe when we get involved in what Jesus is involved in, or what the Holy Spirit is involved in, I believe it's light and easy. And I think when it gets really tough and when it gets really complicated, and that seems to be most of my life, is when I start doing things my way or I'm not exactly in the yoke, I start going off on a tangent instead of down the line that Jesus is wanting me to go down. And I don't know if any of y'all can relate to that, but it is amazing that this is in the Bible because Jesus is pretty much saying, hey, if If you've been working hard and are heavy laden, if you're just burdened, if you're weighted down with work and with the cares of this world, Jesus is giving you an invitation. Hey, come into my yoke, do what I'm doing. I will give you rest for your soul. So if you're tired and you just want a little bit of rest, and here in the United States, it is Labor Day weekend again, and this is a great time to relax before the fall starts. And the holiday season starts coming on. And there's a lot of stuff going on here in the United States. We got an election season coming up. We've got football is starting again, if any of you are involved in any of that. There's a lot of moving parts here in America, and I'm sure there's a lot of things going on where you are if you're listening to this outside of the United States. But I just want to encourage you that here, we're just taking it easy this weekend, or at least I am. And I want to encourage you to read Matthew 11:28-30 and just that promise of light and easy. But I think it comes with a condition that we need to do it the way Jesus is doing it, or we need to pull. Jesus says, get into my yoke. And if you've heard that previous teaching, this is where oxen used to train, and they would put the big bad mature ox in this team, this yoke. And I think it was a wooden yoke. And then they'd train the younger ox that may not have been as mature, maybe a little rambunctious, and they'd put his head in this yoke with this mature ox. And this one would teach him how to pull and what the job was. And I think that's kind of what the picture that Jesus wants us to see is Jesus. And when we start going after what the Holy Spirit is going after in our life or in this world, I think it's really light and easy. And we can bind up Satan. He's a punk, we know that. We need to just get the word of God inside of us. And I'm gonna stop right here because I can feel myself going off on another tangent. But I just want to encourage you, I wanted this to be real quick to release you into this fall coming up.. And I want to encourage you, let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for your word. Jesus, thank you for the promise of light and easy. Help us to understand what it is you want us to know about this passage of scripture. And God, I thank you for everything you're doing in my life, in the life of this listener. And Lord, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
When you pick a side you must choose to be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness
