Episode 1337: Taking the Yoke

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,337 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. I'm Dr.

[00:00:08] Ruth Gotain: Ruth Gotain. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to improve consistently over time is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this.

[00:00:27] The Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:41] Scott Maderer: It's about willing commitment to inner relationship of service and fulfillment and giftedness and be acting from a place of loving more because we know we are loved as well. We're to surrender to love [00:01:00] so that we can learn what it means to be yoked to Christ. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:10] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:35] In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Matthew chapter 11, verses 16 through 19, and verses 25 through 30. I share how we are all called to rest, but not always the way we think of it. And I also talk about what it really means to cast our cares on the Lord. Matthew chapter 11 verses 16 through 19 and 25 through 30 says, but to what will I [00:02:00] compare this generation, it is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another.

[00:02:05] We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We wailed and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking and they say, look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds at that time, Jesus said, I thank you, father Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and in the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.

[00:02:33] Yes, father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the Father, and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

[00:02:53] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle, and humble and heart, and you will find [00:03:00] rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Know the ending of that passage about rest often sounds really wonderful. I'm at a stressful and busy time in my life right now, and I'm sure a lot of you listening are as well.

[00:03:17] And rest sounds like a really good idea. Not just sleep, not just taking a nap, but true rest where these aches and pains and complications and difficulties and challenges of living in the world go away and the worries and the struggles go away and we find it easier to relax and rest completely. When you listen to the passage it's easy to stop there at.

[00:03:47] Come and rest find rest in me, come those who are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest and stop there and think Jesus is inviting us to nap on his couch. [00:04:00] And I think that would be a great thing, but I don't think that's really the offer because the very next verse says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

[00:04:13] Take my yoke is the next words, but being yoked to something or someone sounds like work, sounds like labor, and it is. It isn't. Jesus offering us time off for good behavior or a couple of vacation days from work. This isn't earning vacation time or P t o or getting some extra time off because you've worked overtime.

[00:04:37] Instead, Jesus is saying, forget that. Forget the earning. Framework don't earn grace because you'll always be at the wrong end of that scale. Instead, the offer here is more than just a good night's sleep or a nap on the couch. The idea here is that we need to be working alongside or being [00:05:00] guided by Jesus, but working, moving, being, doing, all that stuff, all those action words.

[00:05:08] It. It's not about checking out in. Instead, it's about diving in. It's about going deeper. It's about leaning into it. It's about restful working. Now, the day of Sabbath was never set aside for rest so that we could be lazy. It was set aside so that we could have a day centered on God and on the life that God intends.

[00:05:30] For us, it was about obedience. It was about working on the harvest, working in the fields of the Lord. What that means exactly. I think we all struggle with, I know I have, but there's times that what we're trying to do is have an end to the striving, have an end to the strain, have an end to the stress.

[00:05:55] The feeling of never dancing when it's time to dance or mourning, when it's time [00:06:00] to mourn. Just like it's mentioned here in Matthew of being out of step with where we're supposed to be in our life, where Christ wants us to be. Instead, what we want is an easy yoke, not one that isn't hard work, but rather easy in terms of it fits me and it fits the time that I'm in.

[00:06:20] It's right for me. It's a place where I can rest easy, trusting that I am where. God wants me to be. How do we really understand that phrase right? For me, however, the yoke that is a fit for me in Matthew is about something different. You look to things like the chapters in Genesis that sometimes seem really obscure or difficult to approach.

[00:06:47] You listen to other things in the Bible and you wonder whether we. Acknowledge them as an individual enterprise. That we are each to be our own person, [00:07:00] whether there's a life of faith or being a disciple. Instead, whether that means being in community with others and what does that look like because those other people aren't just objects that we act upon, but rather they're people who we develop relationships with.

[00:07:18] Th this idea of discipleship and being yoked to Christ is one of relationship it. It may be not about just convincing folks and then leaving them to find their way on their own. It's about commitment and relationship and partnership. Not just like marriage, but about one of time, energy, friendship, companionship.

[00:07:42] It's about all of us being in community with each other. It's about making disciples and making business of the church to be shepherding that process to help others in their journey. That yoke and [00:08:00] the use of servant, we often. Look towards faith and our faith journey is somehow a loss of power.

[00:08:07] Giving up the ability to choose locking into what we've always done, the same social hierarchy, the same structures, the same systemic oppression that we set forward. That everything needs to be this way because this is how we've always done it. But servanthood here is not about forced labor, it's about not about taking of will.

[00:08:30] It's not about giving up self to be yoked to somebody who makes all the decisions for you. It's about surrender of self so that we can be made whole. It's about will and commitment to inner relationship of service and fulfillment and giftedness and be. Acting from a place of loving more because we know we are loved as well.

[00:08:58] We're to surrender [00:09:00] to love so that we can learn what it means to be yoked to Christ. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:13] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market.

[00:09:42] That you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and [00:10:00] your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.