My Yoke Is Easy

Date
August 18, 2013 with Psalm 50
O.T. Text:
Deut 30:11-14 11“For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
N.T. Text:
Matt 11:28-30 28Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The Gentleness of Christ

  1. We are apt to think that God's ways are grievous and that his law weighs heavy on us. This is not so.
  2. Come to Jesus and learn from him. He is meek. He is gentle. He is kind. His ways are peace.
  3. "Learn from me" he says.
    1. What are we to learn? How should we imitate him?
      1. Should we work miracles? walk on the sea? open blind eyes? raise the dead? speak as never man spoke? No, in this verse, he is holding up to us something superior to these.
      2. This is your imitation "learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."
    2. We are to learn his meekness and his gentleness
      1. (Phil 2:5) “Let this mind be in you,” says the apostle, “that was in Jesus Christ,” Phil. 2:5. What mind is this? He describes it in the next verse, — in his humbling, emptying himself, making himself poor, nothing, that he might do the will of God; coming to God's foot, waiting for God's command, doing his will cheerfully and readily. "Let this mind be in you," he says "to be like Christ in this.”
        1. Phil 2:5-6 5Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

Evangelical Obedience and Rest Together

  1. Last week, we saw that perfection or what we called evangelical obedience was necessary for walking with God in holiness.
  2. In our verses today we see that his yoke is easy and that what he calls us to is not far off but near us.
  3. How do we pull together these 2 notions? His law of perfection and his meekness?
    1. On the one hand you have people claiming that Jesus is their righteousness to the extent that they do not seem to need to work hard anymore. Where is the striving, the pressing on to perfection. I'm glad you know of Christ's alien righteousness but is this all? Know him, press on to know him. Don't stop, don't give up. Press on.
    2. On the other hand, you have people who know that the Bible everywhere is commanding us to work hard at righteousness, to live with all our might, and to strive towards what lies ahead. But where is their rest, their peace, their meakness and lowliness of heart? Come, learn from Jesus, he will give you rest. Take his yoke upon you and learn from him, for he is gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for you soul. For his yoke is easy and his burden is light.
    3. Few there sometimes seem to be who have both of these living together in perfect harmony. Our example here is Christ. What tenderness what striving. What meekness what perfection. Let us who abide in him walk as he walked (1John 2:6).
    4. How do these 2 ideas come together to yield on the one hand, lives of rest and peace in the finished work of Christ and on the other hand lives that strive forward towards perfection?
  4. The notion of evangelical obedience that we talked about last week, seem to me to be helpful in pulling together these 2 truths.
    1. A mutual support:
      1. The necessity of this obedience yields striving, an ardency to push forwards towards the prize
      2. At the same time the necessity of this obedience and the realization of how far we are from it yields trusting in God for his holiness. For who is capable of such perfection as he calls us to.
      3. When this is realized it yields further striving for it adds a concept of not letting go of God who alone is your holiness. Where will we get holiness if not from him? So we must strive to hold onto him.
      4. And this yields further trusting for how else are we to hold on to God but by trust. And in his holding on to us we see and experience his faithfulness.
      5. And so the spiral goes. More trust yields more obedience and more obedience yields more trust.
    2. Let me ask, does this spiral describe your walk with God?
  5. Last week we focused on the work that we have to be doing to be considered upright and blameless before God that we might walk with him in holiness.
  6. This week I want to talk about how that can be considered easy, gentle, and peaceful
    1. I don't want this to be 2 contradictory things in our minds: the "be perfect" on the one hand and "he makes me lie down in green pastures" on the other.
    2. And so, the question arises, if God demands perfection of us, --

Are the commands of God possible to be kept?

  1. Do we have the strength power and ability to keep God's law? No, we do not.
    1. We are unable to keep God's laws as to the matter of them
    2. We are unable to keep God's laws as to the manner of them
  2. Impossible
    1. Anyone who has ever given serious attempt to following God's commands knows how hard they are to follow
    2. Anyone who has read the Bible knows how man has time and again failed when attempting to follow God's commands
    3. Job 14:4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one.
    4. Job 15:14 What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
    5. Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
    6. Matt 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
    7. Mark 10:18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.
    8. 1John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
    9. Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
    10. --
    11. Mark 7:21-22 21For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
    12. 1Cor 6:9-10 9Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
    13. Gal 5:19-21 19Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
    14. Col 3:5-9 5Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices
    15. Rev 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
    16. Rev 22:15 Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
  3. What is the nature of God's laws
    1. An expression of what we can be by nature
    2. An expression of what we can be now that we are saved
    3. An expression of who God is and how we are called to reflect him regardless of our capabilities to do so.

How Are God's Ways Gentle and Easy

  1. Simply put, he does it for us.
    1. He gives us what we need to do that which we cannot. Worship God for this.
    2. John 15:4-5 4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
    3. Ezek 36:27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
    4. Owen "But to suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect. Our duty is our duty, constituted unalterably by the law of God, whether we have power to perform it or no, seeing we had so at our first obligation by and unto the law, which God is not obliged to bend [his law] unto a conformity to our warpings, nor to suit unto our sinful weaknesses. Whatever, therefore, God worketh in us in a way of grace, he prescribeth unto us in a way of duty, and that because although he do it in us, yet he also doth it by us, so as that the same work is an act of his Spirit and of our wills as acted thereby."
    5. John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
    6. Every Christian life should be blessed with the mark of the impossible. Every true Christian achieves that which is not possible for them with a regularness that can sometimes be astonishing.
      1. Example in Spurgeon's "Rather lose my 5 senses my sight, my hearing, smelling, my taste, and my touch, than to lose my sense and knowledge of Christ.

Common Mistakes

  1. God has lowered what he requires in his law with the coming of Christ.
    1. "I can sin now knowing that God will forgive me later"
    2. "God understands that I can't do it"
    3. Objection 2 (from last week): What is the reason for a lesser obedience in the covenant of grace? A lesser obedience? What has God lowered his standard will he now accept imperfect righteousness where before his glory demanded an absolute perfection? And all this because of Christ's work? Ans: No!
      1. This would be to make Christ the minister of sin
      2. To the covenant of grace belongs a righteousness which is far more complete and glorious than that which should have belonged to Adam.
      3. The reason of this lessening of obedience lies here: that our evangelical obedience, which is accepted with God, according to the terms and tenor of the covenant of grace, does not hold the same place which Adam's obedience should have had under the covenant of works. For Adam, obedience should have been his righteousness and justification absolutely before God and these works would have merited him eternal reward. But this working of all righteousness is now filled up by the righteousness and obedience of Christ, our mediator; it is the obedience of the Son of God which we stand in. And this obedience, this righteousness is far more eminent and glorious, and shouts the majesty of the attributes of God far more wonderfully than Adam's obedience ever could no matter how steadfast he could have been.
  2. It would be wrong for God to require of us that which we cannot do.
    1. History of this argument seen in Pelagius and in the High Calvinists of Fuller's day.
    2. This is to drag God into unholiness merely to suit our warpings and denying his grace who would bring us up to meet his standard.
  3. It is possible for man by his own strength to comply with God's law. It is not.
  4. "Do I have to"
    1. Do not look at the law and say "Do I have to" but "Do I get to"
    2. The harder the law looks the more gracious our God is.
      1. Example: If God were to offer you ...

Supporting Scripture

  1. 2Cor 5:14-15 14For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
  2. 1John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
  3. 1John 3:22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
  4. 2John 1:6 And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.
  5. Phil 2:12b-13 work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
  6. Col 2:6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, (how did we receive him?)
  7. Jer 31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Who Is the Jesus of the Bible? What Has He Done for Us?

  1. We've talked about some who follow a Jesus of their own imagination rather than the Jesus of the Bible
    1. Some have made for themselves a Jesus who came to relax God's standard so that we might enter heaven imperfect
    2. Some have also made for themselves a Jesus who is exacting and distant in his requirement of perfection from man
  2. The Jesus we know is different than both of these...
    1. We know a Jesus who in his grace lifts weak men up to strength, blind men to seeing, lame to walking. Who gives to the poor wealth, and to the disconsolate peace. Jesus himself lifts us up to meet the standard of holiness and does it gently, meekly, peaceably for; "His yoke is easy and his burden is light."
    2. Matt 11:28-30 28Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
    3. His law "is not too hard for you, neither is it far off" ... "But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it."
    4. W know a Jesus that is so meek and gentle that the worst, the lowest, the parias of his society were all unafraid to come and lay their burdens down before him and find rest for their souls.
    5. The blind came and received sight
    6. The unclean came and he cleansed them.
    7. The prostitute came and washed his feet.
    8. The thief came and watched him from his tree.
    9. He is called friend of sinners
    10. Moses, meek as he was, was not as meek as Jesus. He is not known as the "friend of sinners."
    11. Come. Come and welcome to Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners, who died for the ungodly.
    12. Come to me [he says], 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