For July 5

 

Sermon Notes: Yoked With Jesus

Intro: Having celebrated our country’s blessings of freedom to begin our worship, I would now like to turn our attention to the spiritual freedom we expressed in our Call to Worship based on Psalm 33:12-22. There, all who are weary, carrying heavy spiritual burdens, were invited to come to Jesus who will give us rest. Spiritual rest afforded by His love, forgiveness, and grace, offering us spiritual peace. Jesus offers this invitation in Matthew 11:28. But He then goes on to say, “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.” While He doesn’t say He removes all burdens from us, He is offering to make our burdens lighter and easier.

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I. The Yoke

A.To understand the fullness of this passage, we must first look at the word yoke. It would have been completely understood by Jesus’ audience. To plow a field, usually an ox was hitched to a wooden framed plow with a steel blade. As the ox pulled the plow forward, the blade cut through the soil, turning it over in rows or furrows to prepare the soil for planting. You may have seen Amish farmers in their fields plowing with horses even today. Depending on the soil’s compaction, plowing can take a lot of strength to break up the soil. The person guiding the plow works hard, but the animal does most of the hard work. Oxen were also used to pull large, heavy carts. The perspective being presented in Matthew’s Gospel is that of person weary from pulling the plow through the problems of daily life, or pulling life’s heavy burdens.

B. Now, if the plowman found the work too difficult, he might use a second animal, joining the two with a yoke. A yoke in the Bible was a wooden beam fastened over the necks and shoulders of two oxen to pull a plow or cart. So, a yoke would symbolize servitude, or partnership. But it took training to get the animals to work together. The yoke would only be effective if both animals worked together, pulling in the same direction, making it appropriate to refer to them as a team. Usually, a younger animal would be paired with an older, experienced animal, but one of them would have to become the leader. If both, or neither, assumed that role, there would be no effective work done.

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II. 2 Corinthians 6:14-22

A. Paul uses this metaphor in our epistle reading addressed to the Corinthian Church. He first warns them not be yoked with unbelievers. Without a common purpose, such partners will continue to oppose one another. If an unbeliever takes on the leadership role, a believer’s faith will be overcome. If a believer takes on the leadership role, the opposition of an unbeliever will make the partnership burdensome. Partnerships of light and darkness, or the living Christ and lifeless idols cannot work. Paul then encourages us, as believers, to separate ourselves from such partnerships, purifying ourselves from partnerships that contaminate body and spirit.

B. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that His yoke is easy, His burden light. Our first reaction might be to question that being a disciple of Jesus is easy. Weren’t all the disciples martyred, except John, and even he was exiled to Patmos for a time?  Is that yoke easy?  But Jesus was referring to the life Jewish religious leaders had imposed on the people, supposedly on God’s behalf. They had twisted the law so badly that no one could obey all 613 religious laws in one day. If one became so focused on obeying the heavy burden of laws, they wouldn’t be able to find any satisfaction or enjoyment of life.

C. By contrast, God's commandments are not burdensome but rather intended to make living in obedience to Christ liberating, freeing us from legalism to freedom to live as He created us to. Jesus' invitation to a life of discipleship that, while demanding, is ultimately fulfilling and joyful because it aligns us with God's purpose, sustained by His grace. Yoked with Him, we find His spiritual peace and forgiveness, rest from our spiritual burdens.

D. The word ‘easy’ suggests being well-suited to a task. Followers of Jesus are not exempt from burdens; but are given the right tools to handle them. Have you ever tried to tighten a screw with a butter knife? It can be done; but it’s much easier with the right screwdriver, even easier with an electric screwdriver. Through His life, His teachings, and His presence, Jesus gives us the right tools to handle every burden life can throw at us much easier.

E. One of the basic rules for any craftsman is to care for their tools. If you try to chop wood with a dull axe, or saw with dull blade, you’ll work hard to accomplish very little. So, craftsmen ensure they are using the right tools for the job, and take time to keep their tools sharp. Life will present us with heavy burdens, but sharpening our spiritual tools by studying His word, taking time in daily, listening, prayer, submitting our wills to Him to ensure their proper working condition, we find our burdens becoming lighter and easier. His Holy Spirit guides us in applying those tools for our life’s journey.

F. Being yoked with Jesus allows us to apply His truths to our lives. Loving one another, living in His peace, is easier and more satisfying than being in conflict with each other, living in fear, and fearing revenge. Forgiving others, even ourselves, lightens the significantly heavier burdens of hate and unforgiveness.

G. The second part of Jesus’ invitation is: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.”  Recall that initial image of a single animal straining to plow a field or pull a cart. Yoking that animal to a second animal makes the job easier, but not necessarily easy. If we yoke ourselves to Jesus, who knows the right direction, knows what we are capable of and takes the lead, and learning from Him, our life burdens become significantly easier.

H. Mary Stevenson’s poem, Footprints in the Sand, looks back at times when she was tired, sad, and burdened, and seeing only one set of footprints, wondered why Jesus had left her to bear her burdens alone. But then she is told that those footprints were Jesus’, and that He had been carrying her in those times. Being yoked with Jesus even can go beyond sharing our loads with Him. He even carries us through those times we don’t think we can bear any more.

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III. The Stole As A Yoke

A. Being a pastor is unlike any other heavy responsibility I’ve ever been entrusted with. The stole I now wear is a yoking with Christ we’ve been talking about. For context, John Wesley required his ordained clergy to be graduates of a prestigious university, like Oxford or Cambridge. He would meet with those ordained clergy at an annual conference to insure their theology and practices met his high standards. But when the Methodist Church began its rapid spread in America, the demand for such ordained clergy exceeded the supply, and he began to license laypersons to serve as pastors in a local area for a year. These local pastors could administer the sacraments for their assigned church, or charge, provided they continued to meet his standards for their license to be renewed.

B. When I accepted my call to the ministry in the UMC, I became a licensed local pastor, and assigned to our Waltz church. I had to continue to work towards completing a Course of Study, consisting of 20 specified seminary level courses, and be examined annually by a Board of Ministry panel to ensure my theology and practices continued to meet standards for annual license renewal. Without renewal, by choice or involuntarily, I would no longer have pastoral authority or recognition. But, without a seminary degree, there was no path to permanent ordination, and although local pastors began to outnumber ordained pastors, local pastors only had limited privileges within the Annual Conference. I never agreed with such practice because I never felt my call to ministry had such limits or an expiration date.

C. But that all changed with disaffiliation. The Global Methodist Church still requires a theology degree, or completion of the Course of Study, and a thorough examination of by a Board of Ministry. I met that criteria earlier this year and was approved for ordination as Elder. Many of you were able to watch the ordination service online at our Annual Conference. Your congratulations, cards, and the reception last week will be a grateful and lasting memory for me. But it took some time for me to grasp what ordination and wearing the stole means. So, this morning, I want to share their significance with you.

D. There is no significance in the color or appearance of the stole. It symbolizes a yoking with Christ. While ordinands are determined to be qualified, ordination isn’t about being honored for an achievement. The honor and privilege is being entrusted with the responsibilities, and granted particular voting privileges as an Elder within the GMC. And being yoked with Christ by ordination has no expiration date or requirement for annual approval.

E. Ordination itself is not just being handed a Certificate, like a high school or college diploma. This year, ordination included anointing each candidate, according to the Biblical practice found in Exodus 29:19. Levites, Aaron and his sons, were the only authorized priests to serve in Temple Worship. Only they could offer sacrifices, or handle materials designated as holy. They were the anointed clergy of Moses’ time. Anointing consisted of a ram being slaughtered, then its blood applied to the lobes of their right ears, the thumbs of their right hands, and the big toes of their right feet. The significance of such anointing was to open their ears to the Word of God, to purify their right hand, considered the strong, clean hand, to handle holy vessels, and for the right toe to set their feet on the path of righteousness. As Biblically accurate as the GMC anointing was, I was glad they substituted anointing oil for ram’s blood.

D. After the anointing, the candidate proceeded to a kneeling altar, where Bishop Webb, Bishop Greenway, and presiding Circuit Elders laid hands on each ordinand, invoking the Holy Spirit to convey the powers of Elder on each, by name. The laying on of hands is a lineage of ordination, which is a succession of authority that originated from the Archbishop of Canterbury of the Church of England, to John Wesley, and to ten later Bishops, to Bishop Webb as a leader of the Global Methodist Church, then to each ordinand. So you see, ordination is a defined succession of granted authority, not an achievement. After being anointed and receiving the authority by the Lineage of Ordination by the laying on of hands, the stole was then placed on around my neck as the symbol of being yoked with Christ, given the full authority of Elder to administer the two sacraments of Communion and Baptisms.

G. But while this is a specific yoking with Christ, each of you, as believers, are also invited to be yoked with Christ, as Jesus stated in Matthew 11:29 and 30. You are each invited to take His yoke upon you, learn from Him, and find rest for your souls. It’s an open invitation to all who come to Him. But we must remember that such yoking, as we saw in plowing or pulling a cart, is only effective when one is the leader on a desired path. When both work for the same purpose. If we are yoked with Christ, we must submit to His Will to lead, and work with Him along His sanctified path, if we are to accomplish His perfect plans for us.

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Conclusion. It is an honor and a privilege to consider ourselves being yoked with Christ,  But most importantly, it’s what we do when we are yoked with him. It’s not just about making our own burdens lighter and easier, it’s about plowing the fields of life with Him to plant and harvest souls for Him, as we learn from Him, submit to His Will, and serve Him. It’s what we do when we decide to follow Jesus that makes a difference in this world. Amen.