This text is often preached to sinners, and I may do that again next Sunday morning, but tonight I want to talk to God’s saints. Can you dogmatically tell me that this is a gospel invitation? What evidence is there of that? The context seems to still be the mixed emotions of the returned evangelists. Yes, there is hope for the sinner hidden in these words, but there is much more. This isn’t just nutritious cold potato soup, it actually delights the taste buds of the citizens of Heaven. There is a coming to the Lord for which the Holy Spirit always gives rest. And there is a taking of the yoke of Christ through which even more rest is found.
That last part is the Christian side of this verse. And this is what I want us to think about this evening. The yoke of Christ speaks of identification, instruction and involvement. And you are not half the Christian you ought to be without growth in these three things.
Think first of the IDENTIFICATION.
I wouldn’t be surprised that when Jesus was speaking there stood close by a team of oxen. The Lord Jesus often pointed at things and used them as illustrations in His messages. He often just talked about things which everyone could easily picture. Jesus may have been looking at a team of oxen. They were a team because they were linked together with a wooden frame bound together with leather. It was natural for Jesus to assume that the two animals belonged to same owner. It was obvious that they were there to do the same work as a team. And it is natural to guess that they both received the same care from their owner. They received the same food, and they drank from the same watering trough. When the storms came they were sheltered in same barn, and they may have even rested in same stall.
I have seen fancy yokes in fairs, in books and other places. I have seen them intricately carved, painted and embellished with bells and trinkets. There is quite an art in making a comfortable yoke, and owners are sometimes very proud of them. It is quite likely that Jesus’ step-father, Joseph, had made some yokes and even taught his son how to do it. The new owner of Joseph’s yoke may have decorated it in certain ways, making it all his own.
Christ Jesus may have pointed to a wooden yoke on this particular day, but He was thinking of another. The Lord was talking about the yoke of service to the will of God. And clearly the Lord wants us to slip on a yoke which says, “I’m doing the work of the Lord.”
If there has ever been a day when this sort of thing was needed, this is the day. Among the billions of people in this world, real servants of Jesus Christ as rare as hen’s teeth. It seems that for every hundred church members there are only ten which are really serving the Lord. Generally speaking, most who call themselves “Christians” are really minimalists – doing only the bare necessities. They think that giving up their Wednesday night and attending church is serving the Lord. They think that praying in public is serving God. They believe that dropping a check into the offering box is serving God. But these things aren’t really service, because there is no work, no yoke and nothing being accomplished. “Earnestly contending for the faith” – there is the service of God. Taking a Sunday School room, filling it full of kids, and studying for the best way to share the Word of God with those kids: there is service. Going out into the highways and hedges to bring strangers into the House of God; there is service. Spending thirty minutes a day beseeching God to save specific souls; there is service. Easing the burden of another person; there is service. But to sit idle and inert in church, calling it “worship,” is not service. I’m not saying that it is evil or unimportant; it is good and important, but it is not “service.”
There is needed today, people who are willing to wear the yoke of Christ – identifying with Him. Moses in desperation cried: “Who is on the Lords side?” Joshua challenged the people: “Choose you this day, whom you will serve.” Elijah confronted the backslidden: “How long halt ye between two opinions? If Baal be god, serve Him, but if the Lord be God then serve Him.” These men knew that in their day, there was great need for identification – and service.
I sometimes wonder if it would be good, or not, to be able to remember the yoke of sin which we once wore. The serial-killer Ted Bundy said that pornography put a yoke around his neck that he couldn’t get off. Once he began to read and examine that stuff, he couldn’t get enough of it. Eventually he was murdering young women. I have read that 1,400 children a day are putting the yoke of tobacco around their necks, becoming slaves. Thousands of Christian kids are becoming unequally yoked with lost people in marriage, and then only months later regretting it with their entire souls. Think about the yokes of sin that you have experienced: pride, gluttony, greed, desire for popularity. Some of those yokes demanded that you do things to satisfy the craving – anything.
Perhaps this should make us want to put on Lord’s yoke all the more firmly. Christ doesn’t work through compulsion, coercion or constraint. All of Jesus disciples – the twelve, the seventy – were volunteers. He appeals to our choice: “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.” “But isn’t the purpose of a yoke – oppression – the enslaving of the poor animal?” Not this one: “His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.”
D.L. Moody was preaching on this theme one day and said that he was once invited to an English farm. There were two oxen grazing in field – separated by quite some distance. The farmer got out an old yoke with bell on it and put it on the nearest animal. All of a sudden the other came running over from opposite side of the meadow. He wanted to be a part of the team that did his master’s bidding. That is precisely what the Lord wants of all His saints.
The yoke of Christ means identification with the master and with the yokefellow. It is the master’s yoke and wearing says, “I belong to the Lord.” It’s also shared with a team mate – it identifies with him as well. I am a servant of God through Calvary Independent Baptist Church.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; but to wear the Lord’s yoke is a blessed privilege.
This is also a yoke of INSTRUCTION.
Christ Jesus said, “take it up and learn of me.” But how is wearing this yoke the learning of Christ? First, we learn what it takes to serve Jehovah.
Even though He was and is the Son of God, Christ is also the greatest and highest servant of the Father. And in order to serve the Father, He chose to minister unto us. “He came not to be ministered unto but to minister” – Matthew 20:28. He laid aside his garments and took up a towel to bathe the feet of the disciples. “He made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant.” Christ knows what is to serve, and those of us who don’t serve, don’t know the Saviour as we should.
If you are picturing yourself as yoked to me or to other members of our church, you need to tweak that picture just a little bit. It is the Saviour to Whom we are yoked. It is His yoke, not just because He is the Creator, but because He is a servant too. And it is in His service, while yoked to the Lord that we really get to know our Redeemer. We can’t stress enough the importance of learning of Christ from Christ. Listen to Ephesians 1:16-18 – “Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” He that hath seen Christ hath seen the Father. He that hath seen the way that Christ serves the Father, should see the way that we are to serve the Father. He that hath learned of Christ has begun to learn of Heaven itself.
And by the way, we also learn of ourselves when we are yoked with Christ. Take Paul as an example: First, he thought of himself as a great servant of God. But that was while he was a rebel and a wicked reprobate sinner. Then the Lord saved him and called him into His service. And then Paul began to see himself as the least of servants of God; Then as the least of all the saints; And finally as the chiefest sinners. As we grow in our knowledge of Lord, we learn of our own wickedness. As one preacher put it, “I was no good to anyone until I learned that God didn’t need any more great men.”
This yoke speaks of Identification, instruction and of course of INVOLVEMENT.
Most people look at Christian service in the wrong sort of way. It is not service FOR Jesus Christ, but service WITH Christ. You will never be as close to Christ as you are when you wear His yoke.
The word “subjugation” is probably not something that we use very often. It comes from Latin and means “under the yoke.” When the ancient Roman armies were victorious they sometimes would have a parade which included the leaders of the enemy army. Like some of the civilizations that they conquered, they would have their enemies publicly wear yokes and chains. That is what the Romans did. But what Lord is talking about is not “subjugation” – rather it is “conjunction” – union with Christ.
If you will seek the Lord’s will, Christ Jesus will lead you down the path which He’d like you to follow. He will be your pillar of fire and pillar of cloud in the wilderness. If you have a willing heart, the Lord will show you where and how to serve Him. And He will even give you the power to accomplish it. It is oh, so easy to wear the yoke of the Son of God.
I heard of a pastor who was preaching from this text one evening. When he was finished an old deacon came to him and said, “I wish that I had known that you were preaching this tonight, because I have something to show you.” The next day the old man took him to his farm. Hanging on the wall of his barn was an old yoke, which was clearly lop-sided and off centered. It was designed that way so that the heaviest part of the load was laid upon the stronger animal.
The yoke about which this scripture is speaking is lop-sided, bcause the Lord Jesus is willing bear the heaviest part of the work. And yet He still wants us in that yoke with Him.
And by the way, there is no word here about ever putting the yoke down. The only retired people that you see in the Word of God are backsliders. There is a rest coming to the people of God, and then it will only be a rest from the kind of service that we are giving to the Lord today. Beginning in that day our service will only be of a different kind. Today there is a work for Christ and for eternity which is begging to be accomplished. “Who is on the Lord’s side?”