Senior Pastor Damein Schitter kicks off our January vision series, Unforced Rhythms of Grace, preaching from Matthew 11:28-30.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at NewCityOrlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Benjamin:Well, good morning and welcome again to Worship with New City. My name is Benjamin Kant. I'm a pastor here. I want to say glad to be worshiping with you in the new year. We've got a couple things that I want to draw your attention to. But first, kind of preliminarily, we have a connect table out in the foyer. If you want to find out anything about the things that I talk about here or what it's like in the life of New City, you can go there. We also have an app, a church center app, that has all kind of announcements and links and things like that. That I will point you to over the next couple of announcements here, so you can find out more information about that at the connect table as well.
Benjamin:Well, with that, the two things I really want to draw your attention to are things you've already heard about, which is we are going to be reading the Bible together in a specific way this year. Which is we're going to use the McShane Bible reading plan. We're a weekend at this point and I want to give you some resources, but also some direction on some things. Here's what I said last week and I want to just kind of underline it again which is the aim, the purpose of reading the Bible together as a community is communion with God, and so another way to say that is I have found in my own devotional life of reading and engaging with scripture is that reading is just a portion of it. Meditation and prayer is essential for you to actually meet with God heart to heart in the Bible. And so what I'm why I'm saying that is to say, if for some of you, four chapters a day is too much to meditate and pray, we're inviting you to cut it down to two chapters. We're inviting you to cut it down to one or maybe even just a little paragraph of the passages. In other words, we want you to do this plan with us so that we're we're reading the same scriptures together as a people. But we also want to say it's it's not lowering the bar if the way in which you're going to engage with this plan is to just read Genesis right now, or to just read Genesis and Matthew, as those are the two chapters, two of the chapters that we're in. So that's an invitation, and I'll just say inherent in the plan itself.
Benjamin:Robert Murray M'Cheyne, when he made this plan, he divided it into two halves. He said, these two are for family worship, these two are for private worship, and we're saying choose one of those two. If four is too much, if four is not too much, go for it. It's incredibly rich to be kind of washed in the scriptures in the way in which this plan is devised, but want to encourage you in that way With that, to kind of come alongside you. We're going to be recording weekly podcasts on the four chapters that we're reading together, and so we're going to be reflecting on it, we're going to be meditating on it, we're going to be drawing connections with other points in scripture. It's just basically a way for us to engage in this together. Nate Claiborne he posted a podcast already just kind of introducing the M'Cheyne plan, and I'd really encourage you to go to the All of Life podcast and find that episode, which you can find on the app as well, or in any podcast app.
Benjamin:So with that, the second thing I want to draw your attention to is the new city catechism. So every time you we come to the Lord's table, there's a point when I invite us all to stand and to confess our faith together using the words of the new city catechism. The reason for that is is that it's got 52 weeks, one for every Sunday of the year, and we use it to make disciples of the next generation. Now that maybe fundamentally means making disciples of our children, who are here in the room with us right now, and it also means making disciples of people who are just learning about the faith of Jesus and what it means to follow him. And so the new city catechism, is a really insightful, helpful way for us to be kind of rooted in the basics of the faith, and so we're going to take a question a week for this entire year, just like we did last year, and we're encouraging you to spend this week meditating on learning, memorizing even that catechism question as a family, with your children, with your roommates, whatever that might look like.
Benjamin:One of the ways in which I think this is counter-formative to us is there's a lot of research out there showing that our attention span is just doing this over time because of a lot of things, but Tik Tok is one of the culprits, I'm sure, and as our attention span does this, there's something about meditating on a text in order to memorize it that, I think, is pushing back against the malformation of our day. There's so much more I could say about that, but I'll just leave it there for now to say I'm inviting you, we're inviting you, to memorize the New City Catechism together with your family, with your roommates, as we root ourselves more deeply in the doctrines of our faith. So with that there's also a podcast that we just dropped on the New City Catechism, kind of directing you in that. But one of the things we're going to do is every week we're going to release about a 15-minute episode on the question of the week, and my little ones love this podcast called Tiny Theologians. Some of you all probably listen to it with your kids. We're kind of thinking something that you could put on in the car and listen to with your kids. Now some of you are like, dude, I've heard you talk before. There's no way my kids are going to understand what you're saying. I'm working, I'm trying really hard, and so we're going to do this so that you can actually use it to talk and have conversations as you're commuting or just walking with your children in everyday life.
Benjamin:So with that we're turning our attention to a sermon series that we begin this month. It's going to go through all of January and the sermon series really is. It's called Unforced Rhythms of Grace, which comes from Eugene Peterson's translation of our sermon text this morning. But it really is a good encapsulation of what we here call the common rhythm, which is eight practices four daily, four weekly to love God and love neighbor that we call our congregation to engage with over the course of the life of this church. And the reason why we are doing that and preaching a sermon series on that is because we produce this all of life guide to help assist you as you transition into the new year, to pay attention to yourselves.
Benjamin:There's a command in, I believe, the Gospel of Luke. Jesus commands us pay attention to yourselves, and we're trying to obey that command. We're trying to reflect well and then plan well as we head into a new year, and we created this all of life guide to help you do that. And so we want to spend the next four weeks unpacking the why, what and how behind this all of life guide as well as what does it mean for us to practice the common rhythm together as a community? And we found no better way of kind of getting our clear aim in print than, using Peterson's language of these are unforced rhythms of grace. That's the invitation. So with that, I'm going to invite Shannon Witt to come up here and to lead us in a prayer of illumination and in the reading of God's word, if you would please stand.
Shannon:Holy spirit, give us eyes to see the glory of the Father and the love of the Son through the reading and preaching of your word. Through Jesus Christ, we pray Amen. Our scripture reading comes from Matthew 11, 28 through 30. Come to me all who are 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. This is God's word. Please be seated.
Damein:Thank you, Shannon. Good morning, so good to see everyone. My name is Damien, I'm the senior pastor and I'm so grateful to get to open up this year the first Sunday of the year, believe it or not, with our first sermon of the year, starting a new sermon series. So New Year, new Sermon Series, which reminds me of that, equal parts to me, cringey and irresistible phrase which is New Year, new what, new you? Yeah, that's right, new Year, new you.
Damein:About Friday of this week, I thought that's not going as well as I hoped it was going to go and I just wonder if you felt the same way. And then I recognized, technically my week didn't start till Tuesday and I feel this way I wonder what next week is going to be like, the first full work week of the year. Now we laugh, we joke. I'm trying to make light of this reality where there is something so sweet and powerful, truly about that period of time in our culture, for many of us, where things are a little slower, from Christmas day until New Year's day, and in that time we get the opportunity to reflect, to think about the rhythms of our lives and sometimes we end up trying to add a bunch. But one of the things that we were hoping to do with the All of Life Guide is to help you discern a couple of things. One, it's not a question of should I start new rhythms, but it's rather do I like the ones I already have? Do the ones I already have work for me or do they work against me? Do the ones I already have bring flourishing or do they bring anxiety? For many of us, when we reflect on our rhythms during this season, we get way too preoccupied with what should we add as opposed to what should we subtract, and so often there's so much more power in subtraction in this area than there is addition. But again, there's something lovely to experience this little bit of space.
Damein:And then that wind that I described in jest, that we all felt last week and, if not, we will feel in weeks to come. That wind, that friction, it's simply the load of life, and there's nothing we can do to get rid of the load of life. Life will always carry a load, and we all feel it, and we all carry a load that's unique to us, and so there is no option to get rid of the load. The question is are we carrying the right one? That's the question that I want us to think about today as we interact with Jesus here. Not how do I get rid of this load, but rather am I carrying the right one?
Damein:In fact, in our passage today, we're introduced to biblical language and imagery to help us think about how do we carry the load of life, and the image that's given to us is that of a yoke. Now, a yoke, many of you know, is a work instrument. It's a piece of wood that goes over the back of an animal, and once the animal is fixed to the yoke, they now can have different work implements attached to that, and they plow or they walk, or they pull or they carry. This is what we have for a yoke. It's a work instrument, it's a wooden device that's laid over an animal, and yet Jesus says that he offers us one of those.
Damein:Now, I want to explore that in a minute, but what I want to say is that some of us need to be reminded right now that we are meant to carry weight. It's part of the dignity of what it means to be a human being, and walk with God is to have responsibility. It's to have a load to carry, and we all know what it's like to not have our place, to not know how to contribute, to not know what our load and what our proper weight is. But we also know what it's like to be weighed down, to be crushed under the load that we were not meant to carry. And so, with that, I want us to explore two points today. I want us to explore two points about what are the unique burdens that we carry, because the reality is is, if we're meant to carry a weight, which we are, then we don't know how to rest until we know what weight we are to carry, because those two things go together. We can't rest unless we know the way to carry the load of life that Jesus has given us. Otherwise, how can we truly rest? How do we know if we've done enough, if we've loved enough, if we've given enough, if we've tried hard enough, if we've prepared enough, if we've sacrificed enough? What depends on what load we're asked to carry, to know the way is to make rest and worship possible. So Jesus here is beginning to invite us, in Matthew 11, to consider the way and the yoke that he gives us. And so with that, there's really two yokes. I said you can't get rid of the yoke. That's impossible. Which yoke will you carry? And so I wanna explore today's passage and idea under two main points. The first one is the yoke of burden and the other is the yoke of rest. Those are the two yokes that we see in our passage. So let's start here with the yoke of burden.
Damein:If you look in the passage Matthew 11, a well-known passage in general and, I think, especially at New City, matthew 11, verse 28, jesus has come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So this idea of heavy laden refers in the immediate context in Matthew really to this extra burden that the Pharisees and religious leaders were putting on the law of God. So the law of God is the right good burden, it's the right load to carry, and yet what they were adding and changing dynamics of that load and Jesus most immediately is speaking to this religious legalism, we might call it imposed on people by the scribes and the Pharisees, that was weighing them down, that was impossible for them to manage and in fact, it was never meant for them to manage. Now we know this because later on, in Matthew 23, verse four, jesus explicitly says this this is what he says. Speaking of the religious leaders, he says they tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders Do you see this connection with Yoke? But they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. So he's getting into a little bit of hypocrisy here.
Damein:But if this is the immediate context, jesus is speaking to mostly Jews. He's inviting them come to me because they've been asked to carry a burden related to the law of God, to lead a life that is pleasing to God, that they were never meant to carry. It's been twisted. But one thing that commentators do that's so right and helpful here, after we build on that foundation in the immediate context, is to point out that there's no qualification added here to the exact nature of the burden, and so what that means is that Jesus is calling anyone who is wearied from any of life's burdens. So, even beyond the immediate context, as Ben asked earlier, what do you bring with you this morning? What's weighing you down? What burden are you wearied from? Jesus is speaking to that. Come to me All who are weary, all who are heavy laden.
Damein:Now I wanna explore in this point this idea of the yoke of burden, out of all the things that I thought about and scratched this week and this morning. I'm just gonna select, for the sake of time, two unique burdens in our modern life, I think, that have been put upon us or we've accepted them, accepted to be put on our back, that are a burden that we are not meant to carry. And the first one of these unique burdens in the modern life that make us weary is actually a concept or a term that I first read in a 2019 article in the Atlantic by a journalist named Derek Thompson, and in that article, derek Thompson explores a new religion. Out of all the religions. He says we can worship beauty, we can worship success, we can worship comfort. All those are possible in the pantheon of God, and it's important. Just as you think about this, derek Thompson is not writing from a Christian perspective. He's a fantastic journalist and he's got great stuff, but just so you know where he's coming from because you might be surprised by that, given the language that you'll hear him use when I quote this article what he does in this article in the 2019 is he traces the development of this new religion by starting by referencing the economist John Maynard Keynes.
Damein:And in 1930, Keynes, who's an economist wrote an article called Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren. Now, even if you've never heard of that article, you've heard of this general idea, what he posed. One of the things that he posed in that article was that, because of growing industrialization and technology, the amount of hours it takes to produce work in our economy is going to massively shrink. And so what he actually proposed is that our grandchildren, which would be us now in our generation, would have how many hours do you think, he said, of true work a week? He said 15, 15 hours. So then the question becomes what do we do with all of our leisure? That was his burden. What are we gonna do with all of the free time? So people don't get into trouble, well, if we keep tracing that, well, before I do it, here's a direct quote from Keynes. He says for the first time since the creation, man will be faced with his real permanent problem how to occupy leisure end quote.
Damein:And so what Derek Thompson continues to trace is, he says basically, this is an example of what all economists, or many economists of the early 20th century did not foresee. What they didn't foresee is that work might evolve from a means of material production, which is what Keynes was talking about. It might evolve from that to identity production. In other words, work moves from the economic means to the existential means. It moves from the economy of production to the production of an existential identity. And what Thompson says is essentially what we find is that the data shows us that it has in fact moved from job to career, to calling, to meaning. That is work. He actually says that for a college educated elite, work has morphed into a kind of religion. It promises identity, transcendence and community, and he calls it workism. What is workism? Well, he defines it as the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one's identity and life's purpose, and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work.
Damein:I just wonder in some of your reflections, in all of LifeGuide, some of your goals, do they invite you into deeper relationships or harder work? Do they invite you in ways to lead in your community or ways to progress in your company? Now again, if you know me personally, you know that I'm not bashing work or the goodness of work. I'll come back to that, but this is a real issue. This is the thing that I think is put on our shoulders. This is a burden given to us. That work must not only be good and glorify God, but it must be your meaning, it must be your identity, it must mean everything. Listen, the bottom line is no large country in the world as productive as the United States averages more hours of work per year. We work way more than any other large productive country.
Damein:Rather, let's look at a few things real quick. In 1980, the highest earning men now, this was a study, now it's men and women, it's many ages, okay, but I'm just quoting the study In 1980, the highest earning men actually worked fewer hours per week than middle class and low income men. According, this was a survey by the Minneapolis Fed. Basically, the reason this should confuse us is because in history, the more money you had, the less you worked. But now, actually, the more money you have, the more inclined you are to work More hours. Why? Well, by 2005, the richest 10% of married men had the longest average work week. The richest 10% had the longest average work week. In that same time, college-educated men reduced their leisure time more than any other group. So if you went to college and you're a man, you statistically have less leisure than anyone else. You've kept going and you've increased your work and you've increased it the most if you're in the top 10% of the richest men.
Damein:So today, he says it's fair to say that elite American men have transformed themselves into the world's premier workaholics, toiling longer hours than both poorer men in the United States and rich men in similarly rich countries. So no matter who you whether it's those who have to work a lot in order to just make ends meet, you work more than them. Those who are rich in other countries, who can work less, we work more than them. And he notices, as I mentioned, that this defies economic logic. You see, studies show that today's rich Americans can't afford vastly more downtime, more time with their family, more time to read books, more time to serve, more time to give. We can't afford that, but we've used our wealth to buy the strangest of prizes. He says more work. He says the best educated and highest earning Americans. Now he's moved beyond men this is another study who can have whatever they want have chosen the office for the same reason this is him quoting him that devout Christians attend church on Sundays. He says rich Americans who could do other things are choosing the office. Like Christians choose church on Sundays, he says it's where they feel most themselves.
Damein:For many of today's rich, there is no such thing as leisure in the classic sense. Work is their play. The economist Robert Frank wrote in the Wall Street Journal building wealth to the most rich is a creative process and the closest thing they have to fun. In a recent Pew Research last one I promised in a recent Pew Research report on the epidemic of youth anxiety kids, I want you to listen to this 95% of teens said quote having a job or career they enjoy would be extremely or very important to them as an adult. Now that's good, that's fine, but where does it rank relative to other things that you might be trying to instill in your children, that I might be trying to instill in my children? Having a job or career that we would enjoy ranked higher than any other priority, including helping other people who are in need or getting married. Having meaning at work in this survey beats family, it beats kindness and at the top, it's the top ambition of today's young people and it's causing crushing anxiety because it moves them into a place of isolation, competition and anxiety.
Damein:Right now, listen, even here, I think for our kids. We've turned their academics into a type of work, we've turned their play into a type of work, so there's no wonder they would answer in that way. Okay, so that's 10 minutes of me dumping on work, right? No, not at all. That's not the point at all. This is not a downer on work or working hard.
Damein:What I'm saying is there's a good work that God has designed you to do. It's a right and good heavy yoke and we're to carry it, because this is the primary place where we serve our neighbors, where we glorify and image God as co-creators, where we provide for our family, where we enjoy the goodness of the work of our hands. Moses says praise in Psalm 90, bless the work of our hands, oh Lord, yes, bless the work of our hands. And yet here's an example of where Jesus has created work to be a certain type of well-fitting yoke that we carry weight. But the culture has put a crushing yoke on us. You see, we've taken on the slavery of the current culture's view of work and we've called it stewardship. It's crushing us. This is clear. So of course, this doesn't mean that we ought to not pursue good work and seek to excel at our craft in order to serve our neighbor and glorify God. It doesn't even mean that we shouldn't work long hours. Many of us should work long hours.
Damein:The question is is do you identify and depend on your work for your very meaning and identity? If that's where we get our meaning and our identity, it's the wrong yoke. But if we have found our meaning and our identity in the yoke that Jesus has given us as a disciple of him, as a follower who's now adopted into the family of God, and we're wearing that yoke with Jesus, we can hook some pretty heavy weight to pull behind that in your job. But the question is do you work from that identity given to you with that yoke or are we slaving away under a yoke that's not meant for us in our work? And we're not working from that identity and rest, but we're working for our identity and rest and it will never come, which is why it will crush us. It's a burden too heavy to carry and it shrinks us to one aspect of what it means to be an image bearer, to one aspect of what it means to be a human. Okay, so that's one unique yoke that we I think is crushing us, and the other one is shorter but no less important, and in fact they're integral to one another. So that one's called workism by Derek Thompson.
Damein:I'm calling the next one comparisonism. Now, comparison is natural and fine and good. You can't get away from it. But I've turned it into an ism which when you do that it always makes it bad, basically. So, comparisonism, what do I mean? I think comparisonism in our culture is a uniquely heavy burden and it has its own weird economy.
Damein:The economy of comparison is to live in an economy of scarcity. In other words, as soon as I see something good in someone else's life or another gift that man I kind of wish I would have, that it's now scarcity, and now I start measuring myself against this person and it begins to crush me. Maybe biblically we could call this the orphan's economy, the economy of the person who doesn't have life or meaning in anything stable, and because of that, everything becomes a potential source of life and meaning. But the problem is is that you now live in a world of scarcity, which means that you're competing for that life and meaning and value with everyone around you and then when you're losing you're not loving. And when you're winning you're not loving, because if you're losing you can't love that person because it's gotta be against them, because they've snatched what would have given you value. But if you're winning in the game that you're playing as you compare yourself, you still can't love because you gotta look down on that person or you gotta hide it and hoard it a little bit. And this is the economy of the orphan. This is a place in which we're unable to truly enjoy others because we're too busy competing with them. You see, if I see something good and beautiful in you in the economy of comparison, I'm now threatened by you and I cannot love you properly.
Damein:Now, of course, social media and mass marketing did not create comparisonism, but they are a comparisonism curation machine. That's what I would call it. They just curate all of the algorithms as you scroll and pay attention to things that will uniquely prick in you, the ways that comparisonism will come up in your life. It's built, it's meant to do that, it's built to do that, and so comparisonism didn't exist. Now. It existed with Cain and Abel.
Damein:If you don't know, that story, we read in Genesis just recently in our Bible reading plan. But you have these two brothers and they come before God and they offer their gifts, or we might say talents or their offerings, and Abel's is accepted and Cain's isn't. And we can talk more about that later, or find a good study Bible and read the notes to get an idea of what's happening there, but what we see that ends up as the fruit is Cain lives in the economy of scarcity and comparisonism and he just can't deal with the fact that his brother is better than him in his eyes. He doesn't understand, so rather than moving him to imitate what is good about his brother, he moves into attack and steal what is good from his brother, because he's in this weird economy of scarcity and spoiler alert he kills him, he murders him. But Jesus later, of course, tells us that that's something similar to what we do in our heart when we compare ourselves to others.
Damein:You know, your barometer of security is your barometer of comparison. Can you rejoice with the good gifts of others? Do you really believe that if you carried my load, it would crush you? And if I carried your load, it would crush you? And if I carried your load, it would crush you? If I carried your load, it would crush you. You see, this load that Jesus gives us is very unique and individual to us.
Damein:Sometimes we look out at other people's gifts and we think, man, I wish I had their gifts. As though we can just depersonalize them, take the gifts we like and plug it in somewhere on our Lego thing of skill sets. Right, just, I'll take that Velcro, that Velcro, that. Another thing is, when you take their gifts, you have to also take their weaknesses. You also have to take their challenges, because they're a real human being. They're not a thing of component parts.
Damein:But again, in the economy of comparisonism, we objectify people into what units of value can I get, based on what is valuable to me and in this circumstance? And then in our minds we take those things or we grieve those things or we envy those things. This is a burden that is crushing you and me, this burden of comparisonism. But it's not just people, it's also our exposure to everything, visions of what our life could be. Oh, this one gets me, they all get me. But this one is just so interesting, right, especially for a congregation like this of driven people. We really believe that quote that says you can do anything you want.
Damein:We're like, yeah, we miss the second part, but you can't do everything you want. We're like, yeah, I'll show you. You know, there's been a saying for a long time. It's called have your cake and eat it too. That's not possible. In his book 4,000 weeks, oliver Berkman gets at this particular thing, and this is what he says.
Damein:It's easy for me to fantasize about, say, a life spent achieving stellar professional success while also excelling as a parent and as a spouse, while also dedicating myself to training for marathons or lengthy meditation retreats or volunteering in my community, because so long as I'm only fantasizing, I get to imagine all of them unfolding simultaneously and flawlessly. But as soon as I start trying to live any one of those lives, I'll be forced to make trade-offs, to put less time than I'd like into one of those domains so as to make space for another and to accept that nothing I do will go perfectly anyway, with the result that my actual life will inevitably prove disappointing by comparison with the fantasy life. You see, some of us, because of our exposure, we live a fantasy life yoke. We just put that fantasy life yoke on and we think I can do this, I can do this, I can do that. Just put it all together. We can't, and this is not the yoke that Jesus is calling us to live.
Damein:When Jesus calls, he calls you. He calls you specifically and you have to answer that call. When he says, come to me all who are, who are, what does he say? Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, wevy, hayden I think that's what I was gonna say. He doesn't say that Guess why we have it open Right here. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden. So the call is to all, but the response is individual. It's not uniquely individualistic, but you and I have to respond to this call. Will you come to him Because the call is to you?
Damein:Ozgenus says that when we think about the call of God and Jesus on our lives, comparisons are idle. Speculations about others are a waste of time and envy is as silly as it is evil. We are each called individually accountable to God alone, to please him alone and eventually to be approved by him alone. If ever we are tempted to look around and compare notes, or, I would say, social media pages or CVs or resumes or titles or letters behind the name, compare notes all those are notes and use the progress of others to judge the success of our own calling. We will hear what Peter heard. What did Peter hear? Jesus says to him what is it to you? Follow me, peter, follow me. There's an exclamation point.
Damein:Not many of those in the Bible, if you read and you actually look. What is it to you, peter? I'm talking about you, peter. Don't compare yourself to John. What is it to you if I let him live forever? Look at me, peter. Look at me, peter. It's like I imagine him just gently taking Peter's shoulders. Look at me. Look at me, peter. I have a yoke for you. I have a yoke for you. Don't compare yourself, peter.
Damein:If we're freed from comparisons, we're also freed from competition, and we can reject the notion that, to fulfill our calling, we must get ahead of our own calling, our calling. We must get ahead of others or fear that their development or success will somehow limit our ability to experience God's pleasure and love. And yoke, which brings us, then, to our final point, which is that at the beginning, I said we can't get rid of a yoke, and I just explored all of the false yokes that we wear that crush us, the ones that make us weary, the ones that we might imagine we're wearing. When Jesus says come to me. If you're being crushed by those yokes, come to me. Then what does Jesus offer us? He doesn't say let me take that yoke off of you. He says let me give you a different yoke, let me give you my yoke, and he calls it not a yoke of burden but a yoke of rest. That's our second point.
Damein:I wanna start with a quote by a scholar named Frederick Dale Brunner, which I think is so helpful. It's on the screen behind me and this is what Frederick Dale Brunner says. He says a yoke is a work instrument. Thus, when Jesus offers a yoke, he offers what we might think tired workers need least. They need a mattress or a vacation, not a yoke. But Jesus realizes that the most restful gift he can give the tired is a new way to carry life, a fresh way to bear responsibilities, because realism sees that life is a succession of burdens. We cannot get away from them. Thus, instead of offering escape, jesus offers equipment. It's a good turn of phrase.
Damein:Jesus means that obedience to his Sermon on the Mount, his yoke, will develop in us balance and a way of carrying life that will give more rest than the way we have been living. You see, when Jesus offers us a new yoke, he doesn't invite us into a world that's not real, a world, a discipleship that doesn't call us to struggle in order to work, to exert ourselves, but he calls us to a new way of carrying that life. He gives us his yoke. The beloved disciple John in 1 John 5 says this for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, which is Jesus's yoke, and his commandments are not burdensome. So John's picking up on this idea too, that if we carry Jesus's commandments, if we live the life that Jesus has called us to, somehow it's not burdensome like the other burdens that we've been carrying. It's a different type of life.
Damein:Now, in verse 28, we see, come to me all who labor heavy laden. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, take it upon you, your trading yokes, 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. Now this word translated easy. We need to carefully understand this. Jesus is not saying that life will now be free of pain or free of hardship or free of weight to carry. In fact, elsewhere this word is translated kind, so my yoke is kind. In Ephesians four we read be kind to one another, tender hearted. So consider what Jesus is saying. His invitation to take up his yoke is the kindest thing he can offer us in the life that he's called us to. It's the kindest thing that he can offer us in this life to wear his yoke, to follow him, to carry life in his way.
Damein:Now some of us think I don't know if I believe that I mean, because it seems to me as a cute turn of phrase he doesn't offer us escape, he offers us equipment. But I don't know if you know how tired I am. I don't know if you really know the burdens of my life, the yoke that I have, the weight that I'm carrying. And the reality is that many of you are carrying weights way heavier than I've been asked to carry. And of course I've been asked to carry weights that are heavier than many of you have been asked to carry. But the point is is that who is bearing that burden and really carrying the weight in your life? Is it Jesus, the great burden bearer, or is it you and I who say you know what If you're not gonna give me escape. If you're not gonna give me what I want, I'm not even gonna carry your yoke. This is how crazy that is. Just so you know, and we're all crazy like this. But to reject Jesus' yoke, as though we can find something kinder somewhere else, as though we can find something kinder in our own strength. Think about this illustration To tell Jesus that to switch the yoke that we're carrying with his yoke, to tell him that that's not good enough, that that's too heavy, is like telling a drowning man that he must put on the burden of a life preserver.
Damein:Right? Can you imagine that? Can you imagine throwing a life preserver and putting it over a drowning man and him crying out, sputtering no way, not me. This is hard enough. Don't put that on my back. It'd be crazy, right? Why? Because that life preserver is the exact thing he needs on his shoulders. That will buoy him, that will weigh him up.
Damein:You see, jesus' rest his yoke of discipleship that he offers us is like a life preserver. It's also like. Think about helium. What does helium do to a balloon? It buoys it, it lifts it up. This is the yoke. Gravity still exists when that balloon rises. But there's something else that buoys it, and you and I need this something else.
Damein:You see, true rest is possible, not when we get rid of all weight, but when we carry the correct weight, the weight we were meant to carry as image bearers and disciples of Jesus. Jesus knows the universal growth equation. Whether you're lifting weights, trying to get better at surgery or memorizing a passage in school, stress plus rest equals growth. You're not gonna grow if you don't have real stress that stresses you to the edge. But then you rest and then you grow. Jesus somehow perfectly embodies this. But you know, there are times when we feel like the stress is too much, I can't take anymore. But Jesus, in his kind yoke, he knows exactly what I need, he knows exactly what you need.
Damein:You see, when we think of the common rhythm as an example and this is where I'll close we can see those, as you may see those, as a burden that we're putting on you. Like, we have these eight practices, four daily, four weekly and you look at that and you say, look, there's a pretty more burden in my life. They don't know how busy I am, they don't know how stressed I am. They don't get it. They're pastors. They're paid to read the Bible. They're paid to pray, they're paid to care about this stuff. If they lived in the real world, they would know.
Damein:Most days I'm just trying to survive. Most days I'm lucky if I pray for 10 seconds, much less three times a day. You want me to send an alarm at noon and pray? Man, I wish I was a pastor. There was a little bit of edge to that. But I'm trying to really attune to you. I'm trying to attune to what's really happening in your heart.
Damein:They don't get it and, to be completely honest, there's lots of things we don't get, candle, which is why we try to do workplace visits. And when I meet with you I'm gonna ask you hey, tell me what's your work, what's the pressures. Even this morning I'm talking to someone and I said, hey, tell me how's work going. Why? Because I know this is a significant part of our life. So I don't get it and I wanna learn. But this is what I wanna say is that these practices, we do not mean for them to be a burden. We mean for them to lead you into communion with God, because he is the one who is your great burden carrier. And if we don't avail ourselves of the way in which he relates to us and encourages us and changes us, then we won't grow and we won't faithfully carry the yoke that Jesus has given us, because we won't know how Practices that we engage help us rest in God's love, not earn God's love.
Damein:One of the things I love about this passage, though, is that if stress plus rest equals growth, jesus is not merely a personal trainer who gives you the correct plan, the correct equation and then lets you go. No, he doesn't simply meet us at our place of need. He lives in our place of need. He's always there, waiting for us, every day, every moment. Come to me, come to me. Come to me. You tired? Come to me. Are you weary? Come to me, are you glad? Come to me, let's celebrate together. Come to me, moment by moment. This is Jesus, and so in what unique places do you need to respond to Jesus this morning when he says come to me. Where are you weary? Where are you embracing the wrong yoke and where are you rejecting Jesus's yoke? Because you're confusing it for the wrong one?
Damein:Last thing I'll say, because we're gonna preach a whole series on this. This was more the introduction to the idea of why we can't get rid of a yoke and have to carry a yoke, but we just need the right one is that, when you look at all eight practices, let me just say, depending on where you are, it legitimately not only could but should take you this entire year to really embrace all eight practices. It could take you this entire year to really weave them in to your discipleship, to really weave them in to your communing practices with God. So let me just say, if that were the case, if it were to take you all year, that would be a win, it really would be a win. So maybe you could just start with two, two per quarter.
Damein:Start with worship, because you're here. So look, you've already gotten a head start Gathered worship. I'm gonna prioritize that. And then next choose scripture, choose daily scripture, because we're starting this plan together of reading together. Just choose those two. You have my pastoral permission to forget all of the others until you really have locked in those two, because it's not about speed, it's not about speed, it's about communing with Jesus.
Damein:And so my invitation this year, our invitation, is that you would recognize the yoke that's crushing you and trade it for the yoke of rest in Jesus. Let's pray Father, we all need this message. All of us are slaves, so often to our insecurities, to our fears. They fuel us. But we wanna be fueled by your love, we wanna be fueled by your rest and yoke that you offer us A life that is abundant, a life of service, a life where we don't have to work to find rest and identity, but rather we work from rest and identity. Would you teach us how to embrace that rest? Apart from anything we could do, we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.
Damein:Now this is the time in our service where we respond. You've heard a lot of words from me and I just bet and I hope that at some point something landed and you thought, yeah, that hit somewhere. There's truth to that. Ask the Holy Spirit in this time to show you more, reflect a little more in His presence, offering prayer and curiosity and praise. In this time of reflection, what was that thing that you heard this morning that you'd like to pray and reflect more on. Take a few moments of silence to pray and reflect and in a few moments Ben will come up and lead us through communion.