His Burden Is Light

But we do have a word to share.

So let's dig right in.

The title of my message tonight is His burden is light, and I just want, I hope, that this message will just encourage you and lift you.

You know we all are carrying a load sometimes that we should not carry.

So let's go right into Matthew 11.

And the sweet words of Jesus come to us and he says come to me, all you who labor and our 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.

You know God wants us to have the ease of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

He does not say that His yoke is non-existent, because we do have a purpose.

Our purpose is to glorify God with our whole lives.

And to glorify God that means we do carry a load in this life, but it's supposed to be easy and it's supposed to be light.

And so I have a few points about this, but first I want to show you a picture of an actual yoke.

We talk about those yokes.

It's a popular concept here in the Bible and especially in the King James, and I want to show you so.

Right now, lee is putting up a picture of a yoke of two oxen.

I don't think they're actually cows, but you can see that wooden piece that connects those two animals and how it's made of wood and you can imagine how if that yoke was made of lead or ire or something really heavy, whatever was really big and intricate, then that would be so uncomfortable for that animal, it would be so heavy.

And then I want you to see the next picture, how that man is.

So those two oxen there could well have been 10 oxen, 12 oxen, many oxen yoked up together, pulling, and think about how light that one little man, that Indian man who is plowing his field, how light that load would be if there were 12 oxen and one guy there.

But then think about if there's just two oxen and maybe you have an army of NFL linebackers, nose guards, the guys that are like 350 pounds, maybe you have about a whole team of those guys and they're on that plow and now that one or two oxen are having to pull those guys, think about how heavy that would be.

And so there's just a picture for you.

Jesus said my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

He wants you to be yoked up with him.

Jesus said when we are yoked up with him, his yoke, so he's sharing it with us.

And that's why it's so easy, because Jesus, the whole power of the Godhead, is with us, working with us when we decide to be yoked up with him.

And so I have another picture of an unequally yoked team, and Leah's gonna put that up now and you'll see that this donkey is yoked up with a much bigger beast of burden, and which of those beasts are gonna carry more of a load.

So what, I don't wanna be.

I do not wanna be yoked up with a donkey.

No, I wanna be yoked up.

Sometimes I feel like the doggy, but I wanna be yoked up with the full power of God and that's why it's easy to carry.

We can carry as big of a load as God can carry.

When we're yoked up with him, it's awesome, and his burden is light.

He wants you to trade your heavy your way, your plan, the plans of man.

It's too hard, it's too heavy for you to bear.

With man it's impossible.

But God says with him, all things are possible to him who believes so with God, all things are possible.

So trade your heavy burden that you're doing that was your plan and trade it over for God's plan, doing it God's way, yoked up together with God.

And that burden, you'll be surprised at the work you'll actually be doing, the accomplishment that you'll have.

But it's not heavy and it's not hard, it's awesome and that's God's plan for our lives.

So let's talk about more about that tonight.

I have an example from the word first, about being yoked up with Jesus and what that looks like.

And you can turn to Luke five, starting just with verse one, and it says so it was is the multitude pressed about Jesus to hear the word of God that he stood by the lake of Ganeserit and he saw two boats standing by the lake but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets.

So this is early in the gospels.

Jesus didn't have any disciples yet and Jesus got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and he asked him to put out a little bit from the land and he sat down and he taught the multitudes from the boat.

How awesome is it to you know, here's Peter, a fisherman, and he has some tools of his trade and he has a.

His biggest, most valuable tool of his trade is his boat.

That is his money maker, that is the thing that he has.

He has put all of his investment capital into this boat and he's using it for business.

But now he's decided no, I'm going to let Jesus use it.

He can do more with this boat than I can.

And so there's something powerful when we, when we, yield our money maker to the Lord, and that's what Peter did.

And so then Jesus used it to preach.

And then, when he had stopped speaking, do you think Jesus is a debtor to anything we give him, anything we loan Jesus?

Does he?

Does he let us suffer in lack after that?

No, so Jesus says to Simon launch out into the deep and let down your net.

That's for a catch.

And Simon answered him, said Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.

We have toiled all night and caught nothing.

Let's, let's think about that for a minute.

Are you there where you have been toiling, maybe in your own strength, and you have worked and you have labored and you thought you were doing this good thing?

I'm sure Peter tried everything he could to provide for his family.

If he worked all night.

You know he was hungry.

If he had a supply built up, he would have said no, this is not a good night of fishing, I'm going to go home, I'm going to go to bed, I'll hit, I'll hit it again tomorrow.

And but no, he worked all night because he was desperate.

And God sees us when we are desperate, when we need, when we just have got to have this thing come through for and everything is depending on his crunch time.

Jesus saw that and he toiled in his own strength in me, and God doesn't want us to do that.

Nevertheless, the word says Nevertheless, peter said at your word, I will let down the net.

What are you willing to do when Jesus tells you to do it?

Even when you've tried it?

You've thought you've done that a million times.

You thought you had done everything possible.

And Jesus said Well, just try it one more time.

And then what happened?

Y'all know what happened.

It was a good thing that happened.

When they had done this, they caught a great, mega number of fish, such that their net was breaking.

They caught so many fish and they signaled to their partners and the other boats to come and help them.

So they couldn't even.

The harvest was too big for them to get by themselves.

Now they've got to have their partners come in and then, and so they did, and they came and filled their boats so that they began to sink.

You had two boats now starting to sink because there was such a huge harvest.

In other words, god can do more with one command.

He can do more just with what?

Just that when we are obedient to his one command and when we step out of our natural ability and to his supernatural ability, then he is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above.

Ephesians 3.20 says exceedingly abundantly.

Above all that we ask or think According to the power that works in you.

You know, god has this power and we always think, oh, he's just going to magically do this, he is going to do this miracle.

He is going to do, but the power works in you.

Peter had to do something he had to obey.

He had to get out there one more time, even though he was tired, and so he did that.

And then he got this harvest and when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees and said depart from me, I'm a sinful man.

So the fear of the Lord came on him.

He knew how many of you have had that before, where you, just, you just knew that God's power was on you and that you could never have done that thing on your own.

And so for he and all who are with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken.

And so it was.

It listed the four men that were there James, john and they were the sons of Zebedee and then who were partners with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon do not be afraid, from now on you will catch men.

In other words, I'm calling you, and so I'm calling you to catch people.

You're going to be a worker in my kingdom, and so, at that, they brought their boats to the land and they forsook all of it and followed Jesus.

They followed him.

So that was the first call of God on their lives.

And I just want to encourage you, those of you, you, all of you, have a call of God on your lives.

You have a purpose.

You have been placed like a puzzle piece in the body of Christ for such a time as this.

You, may, many of you, have found your purpose.

Many of you are still looking for that purpose.

Sometimes you have an area of fruitful ministry, and then the Holy Spirit prunes that.

And then there's another field that you've got to find in the interim.

And where is that field?

There are times of transition that we have, but Jesus is there in that time of transition and he will provide for you.

He had a provision for the new season that Peter was being called to, and, and James and John, and so it was awesome that God, god provides.

You know, when we do things our way, we're still carrying a load.

They, they, they have now they're going to carry a load for the kingdom of God.

I have a story.

I do have a story.

You know we're all carrying a load and if you're a parent, you know that is your primary load.

Everything you do revolves, yes, first around the kingdom of God for our family, but definitely for our family.

I stand in awe.

I know as parents, we look at the job of raising our kids and we think this is a most.

This is of eternal impact.

This is the most important thing I'll ever do, and the call of God on you is important.

Sometimes it can be heavy, it can be weighty, and I remember a time when my oldest kids were in junior high that I looked around it.

Outwardly they were very successful, but on the inside I was very uneasy.

I was uneasy about the future.

I had God had put a little scratch.

He started.

That's what, when he's leading you, sometimes you just have a little bit of just discomfort in there.

It's the peace of God that begins to lift with our plan, and if it didn't lift, we would just stay on the same path, going down, down, down.

And.

But see, outwardly I couldn't see it, because my kids, you know, outwardly the signs were good, but well, we were uncomfortable with where they were going to school and we.

James has told this story a long time, several different ways, but I want to tell it from my perspective because, as a mom, I just saw that my kids were learning things in school that was beginning to separate them from our, from our ideals.

They love the Lord, they have the word of God, but I could just see that every day it was getting more and more time consuming to deprogram them from some of the things that they had learned and from some of the atmosphere that they were just surrounded with by virtue of where they were all day in school.

And I saw that this was beginning to separate and divide.

I saw the seed of that thing and I saw down the road and I thought, well, you know I have a certain mindset, though how many of you?

You have a certain mindset about something and you just know this is the way it is.

And my mindset was that, you know, a strong Christian kid who really loves the Lord should be a light in his or her school.

That they should go we shouldn't separate and encapsulate our kids from other unbelievers that they should go, be a light.

And that was the life I had led and I lived in public school, did and thrived in public school, all through school and even in university.

But the Lord began to put people in my life, other voices, and I had to change my mind.

And one time I just asked what if?

And it looked so impossible, what if?

They went to Christian school?

And we began to look and I asked for.

The first person I asked, of course, was James, my husband.

He said, well, you know, I went to Christian school.

And I was like, oh yeah, you, I never really thought of that, okay, and so he was really open to it, right?

So we began to research and we thought, well, this is so financially and with man, it looked impossible.

I mean absolutely impossible.

Anyway, it looked.

I just say that it looked impossible.

And we, but we began to kind of walk it out and I can tell you that because the plan of God I mean as we began to research things began to fall into place and God provided from the school he provided in our finances.

There were additional streams of income that we had never imagined or seen coming and they began to pay out.

We had provision for that thing.

We had a harvest we are boats.

We had a harvest of fish that we could use to put against this load of the call of God on our kids' lives and we were able to apply that into the next phase of our ministry and which was for them.

They needed to be in Christian school for that.

And since then, when I talk about the ease we've talked about being yoked up with the Holy Spirit.

I had my plan in my way, but it was doomed to fail eventually.

It worked for a while and then we began to operate under the new plan that God put in our hearts.

We had a peace and excitement about that plan and we follow it and we let God pay for it.

We let God work out the details, and he did that.

And now I'm telling you his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

I look at my kids.

I look at the relationship that we have, the things that the ideals and values that we have in common now that are so, so more closely aligned.

I look at our dinner time conversations.

That went from having to deprogram.

That means all of the things we talked about during our dinner time conversations were the base things of this world Were things that were fighting in the culture world were every day.

Our kids were immersed in that and I had to.

So I had to unpack every little argument and every little thing every day.

And now we can.

At the dinner table, we can talk about the word of God, we can talk about what they learned in school, but how does that relate to the Bible and Bible integration?

We are entire conversation of our family, in the car, in the dinner table, wherever we are.

It has lifted and it has been awesome.

I'm not saying that, christian school or not.

This is not about you and your kids and whether they should go to Christian school.

I am not your Holy Spirit, but I'm telling you in my life.

I follow what the Holy Spirit told me to do for our kids and James, and we did these things and now the parenthood has become not a burden but an absolute blessing and awesome walk with God, with our kids and for us.

That was the answer.

So, anyway, we're yoked up with God.

He will help us.

Look at this in John 20, actually in let's go to Matthew 17 now.

So the disciples, especially Peter, peter, is now following Jesus.

He has forsaken all of his fishing business and he is following Jesus.

How many of you forsaken all things and you're following the Lord wholeheartedly?

But he still had a need.

And what was his need In Matthew 17,?

It was the temple tax.

There was still this religion hanging over them that required them to pay this tax to support the dead religion around them.

That really didn't have anything to do with the messianic reign of Jesus.

It was actually kind of that spirit of religion was fighting against what Jesus was doing.

And nevertheless Jesus said to him lest we offend the tax collectors there for the temple, I want you, jesus told Peter, go to the sea and cast in a hook and take the fish that comes up first.

Everybody say first the fish that comes up first and when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money and take that and give it to them, for me and you.

So when he noticed me and you, jesus and Peter were now yoked up together.

They are pulling a load, they are working the work of the ministry.

They are, peter gets to participate in Jesus's ministry and so do we.

And because they're yoked up together, jesus said we, together, we owe this tax and I'm gonna supply it again through a fish.

God uses fish, and so Peter puts a hook in the water and it is the very first, the very first fish that comes up, just so happens to have this coin in its mouth.

And Jesus knew where that fish was.

He said go get it.

Go get it.

How many fish do you think you would have to try to catch before you caught one?

When the gold coin or whatever kind of coin, it was a coin worth enough money to pay such a humongous tax, it was obviously burdening them.

They didn't have it just floating around, but Jesus knew where it was and it came up first.

So the ease I'm just talking about being yoked up with Jesus, the ease of the Holy Spirit came upon Peter.

It came up first and it might look like you need to find a needle in a haystack, but guess what?

Jesus knows where the needle is and he can find it for you.

He wants to help you with it.

You have the Holy Spirit on the inside of you.

Follow his plan, do it his way and he will help you.

His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

And so now one more story about fish in John 21.

So now Peter has spent his the last three years ministering alongside Jesus, giving Jesus his boat.

He'll let Jesus pay his tax.

Walking side by side, he's seen Jesus transfigured on the mount Just think about Peter.

And now he's seen Jesus crucified and died.

He had to know that he, before Jesus died, he had betrayed.

Peter now knows oh, I betrayed the Lord.

And now he feels like a total failure and he feels probably fearful of his very life because the same people that killed Jesus, the Son of God why wouldn't they just come and squish Peter like a bug?

Of course that's what their plan was.

And Peter is feeling the pressure and the weight and the fear of all of that In verse one, john 21,.

After these things, jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and in this way he showed himself.

Simon Peter, thomas, the twin Nessaniel of Canaan and Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee the two others of his disciples were together, and Simon Peter said to them I am going fishing.

I know I first took fishing.

I followed Jesus, but all of that's over now.

I failed him really bad and I'm probably gonna die now and I'm just gonna go fishing.

That's the only way I know how to make any money and I'm gonna just do that.

I'm gonna go back to my old life.

And they said to him okay, well, we're gonna go with you too.

And so it must have been a tie, just a somber time.

And they went out and immediately got into the boat and that night they caught nothing.

They caught nothing.

They caught nothing because, once again, it was their plan and not God's.

And when the morning had now come, jesus stood on the shore and the mercy of God stands on your shore.

And he said to the disciples they didn't even recognize him.

Because you know what, when you're toiling in your plan, a lot of times it is hard to recognize the voice of God.

It is very difficult.

You have hardened yourself, you have dug your heels in to do your own thing.

And so the voice of Jesus is a little bit unfamiliar now to them.

It's only been a little times since they've heard him, but it's now, it's unfamiliar.

Plus, he is glorified, he is different, and they haven't followed everything.

And but Jesus said to them children, have you any food?

No, no, they don't have any food.

And they tried.

They tried one for lack of trying.

But he said to them cast the net on the right side of the boat and you'll find some.

You know, there's nothing good on the left side.

You got to move to the right, but they put their net on the right side of the boat.

They cast, and now, now everything changed.

Now God made the nothing turn into something really big.

Now they were not able to draw in that net because of the multitude of fish.

Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved, that's John, said to Peter it's the Lord.

Oh, they recognize him because of the miracle provision.

And now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he had removed it, and he plunged into the sea.

But the other disciples came in in the little boat, for they were not far from land but about 200 cubits, dragging that net with the fish.

Then, as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there.

You know, jesus was there to cook for them and the fish laid out on it and bread.

And Jesus said to them bring some of the fish which you've just caught.

I mean breakfast with Jesus.

My dad says fish tacos.

They had fish tacos with Jesus and Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land full of large everybody say large fish.

These were not just the little wimpy ones, these were the ones big enough to feed them and it was so crazy they had to sell this.

It probably fed the whole village and surrounding villages because there were 153.

Remember that for Bible trivia, 153 fish All there.

There were so many that the net was not broken.

The net was not actually broken, jesus even.

He even preserved their capital here, their net, and Jesus said to them come and eat breakfast.

And so they had a breakfast by the sea, right there, because Jesus supplied that and he once again in a time of transition again.

So there was that transition of the disciples into the ministry of Jesus and now Jesus is about to be ascended into heaven.

And then there's another transition.

He knows they're facing that, so he has already supplied for them.

This is a theme throughout the Bible when Jesus, where he guides, he provides, where he leads you, he will feed you and he put the provision ahead of the transition.

And so I just know you are going.

I just I see that you are coming into a time of transition and God says he will provide for you.

He has a supply that you have not considered and you will not catch it in your own strength.

You will catch it when you obey the voice of the Holy Spirit and you follow his plan.

That's where your provision is and that's where it was for the disciples.

Praise God, you know.

And for Peter.

I heard the scripture this week.

It blessed me, in Proverbs 24, 16, for a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again.

A righteous man may fall seven times and rise again.

Peter rose again.

He fell, he messed up a lot and he betrayed Jesus.

He committed what was probably the worst sin and he bore the guilt of that and he was able to give that back over and redeem that and he got back up and he served the Lord with this whole life.

And so when you get discouraged, just get back up.

Know that you're yoked up together with Jesus.

Don't be unequally yoked.

Don't let yourself be yoked with a donkey.

Yoke yourself with Jesus and then recognize his call on your life.

In the transition where you are, recognize his provision.

Agree with his word.

Nevertheless at thy word.

I will let down the net.

Nevertheless at thy word, nevertheless at thy word.

Do your actions line up with the word of God.

When God said something to you, have your actions lined up with it?

And if they do, then you're in line for your provision.

And then just remember his mercy and always get back up.

When you fall, always remember the mercy of God.

He is there with you, he sees you.

Whether you're feeling desperate, whether you're feeling like a failure, there are no failures in the kingdom of God, because you're yoked up with Almighty God and his power is working through you.

Amen.