Walk With Me

Well, good morning, Church.

How are we doing this morning?

Youth.

Our youth is ready.

This side was a little hey, come on.

I think we can, yeah, we can get there.

I said who's excited for church this morning.

There we go.

There we go.

Hey, my name is Drew, and I'm the youth pastor here at Frankenmouth Bible Church, and it's an honor uh to bring the word of God to you this morning.

Really quick, I just want to shout out our elders.

Uh, the way that they lead and guide our church is phenomenal.

Um, I'm gonna shout out our lead pastor, Pastor Joe.

Who loves Pastor Joe?

Come on.

He gave out cookies last week.

Hey, I don't have cookies for you this morning, but just the way that uh he leads and guides us as well and pushes us uh to get out of our comfort zones.

And so I just want to say thank you to them.

Uh hey, here we go.

I need your help this morning, okay?

I need your help with two things.

The first one is honesty.

And a second, I'm gonna ask some questions and I need your honesty.

I am prepared to be vulnerable and honest with you in a story I'm about to share in a moment, but I need honesty from you guys.

The second thing I need is engagement, okay?

I'm a really big relational person.

I love people, I love when people are engaged.

And what does that look like?

That looks like if I say something that you like or something that is biblical, you can say amen.

Uh, that's good.

You could say uh preach it, Drew.

I don't know, whatever is fit for you, do that, okay?

But I I it helps me out.

It helps me out, it also helps you not fall asleep, okay?

I hope I'm not boring, but we're just saying, okay, could happen.

Um, but hey, we're gonna we're gonna get into some questions here.

Um I I asked these three questions before youth, before I start my message every week.

Here's the first one.

If it doesn't apply to you, don't raise your hand, okay?

Number one.

Who has had a good week this week?

Anybody have a good week?

Like, man, honestly, Drew, it couldn't have gone better.

Okay, great.

I love it.

Question number two.

Who has had an average week?

Like it wasn't great, it wasn't bad.

Our youth students would say it was mid.

Anybody have a mid week?

Okay, it's great.

It's great.

Third question, maybe you know it's coming.

Uh, who has had, if we're gonna be honest, a bad week this week?

Has anybody had a bad week?

Yeah, thank you for being vulnerable.

Thank you for being honest.

I appreciate it.

I asked these questions because I think it puts life into perspective a little bit.

Because we're all walking in here from different areas of life with different things, carrying heavy burdens, carrying uh whatever that looks like for you, weariness.

But we're all walking in.

Maybe we had a good week.

Say I had a good week, I walk in here, it's really easy to think that everybody else had a good week.

And then you see the hands like, no, actually, life happens.

Life is hard.

Or on the other hand, it's easy for you to be having a bad week.

You walk in here, and people are smiling and greeting you, and you see other people smiling and talking.

It's like, am I the only one?

Am I the only one that's hurting?

What it does is it allows us to see, hey, it's not just my life.

Other people are coming in here with different experiences, and it allows us to have compassion with him.

So I don't know what you walked in here with today.

I don't know what you're carrying, but what I do know is that we have a God who is madly in love with you.

We have a God who wants to meet with you this morning.

We have a sovereign God who knew you before the foundation of the world.

He knows you intimately.

Scripture says that he knows the number of hairs that are on your head.

That it's not a mistake that you're in here this morning.

And so, my encouragement, my challenge to you is this don't let today be just a normal Sunday.

Where you walk into church, you say hi to people, you sit down, you hear the message, you leave, you go grab lunch, and then you go about your week and you forget about the message by Monday.

Would we allow today, would we allow the word of God to impact our soul?

Would we allow the word of God to transform our hearts, not only our hearts, our families' hearts, our children's hearts, our marriages.

Can we do that this morning, church?

That the word of God is powerful.

Maybe you walked in here this morning because all you've known is church.

Your parents drug you to church, you grew up in church, and so you just came because that's what you do.

Maybe there's some of you in here this morning that uh you walked in here and for the first time you're saying, Hey, God, I need you, but also if I don't hear from you, I'm done.

It's over.

I can't do this anymore.

I don't know what that is for you, but would we be open to receive what he has for us today?

I believe that this is a word from God.

I need this word.

I need this word.

So if you would, would you open up to Matthew chapter 11?

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

If you didn't bring a Bible, you don't have a Bible, hey, we made it super easy in the seatbacks in front of you.

There is a Bible.

Grab that, don't be shy, go for it.

Uh we are in Matthew.

That is uh the first book in the New Testament, part of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Tells us all about Jesus' life, his story, his ministry, who he is, what he did.

Uh it's about three-quarters of the way through the Bible.

Uh, but we are in a summer series called Digging Deep.

And what we have done is we've taken some of your favorite verses, favorite scripture, and we've uh went under the surface.

We've dug deep.

We've we've looked at what the context is, we've looked at what the true meaning of those verses are.

And so this morning we're gonna do that with Matthew uh chapter 11, verses 28 through 30.

Matthew 11, 28 and 30.

This is Jesus speaking, and he's speaking to a multitude of people, and this is what he says he says, Come to me, all who 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.

The title of my message this morning is Walk with Me.

Walk with me.

Would you pray with me this morning?

Father, we thank you for today.

We thank you for your grace and for your mercy.

Father, would you have your way in this room?

Father, I pray that I would step to the sides that to the side that this would not be my words, but this would be your words.

That this would not just be information, but this would be true heart transformation.

Father, thank you.

Would you speak to me this morning?

Would you speak to us this morning?

Have your way in this church this morning.

Father, we love you, we honor you, and we praise you in Jesus' name.

Amen, amen, and amen.

February of 2025, February of 2025, uh, for the first time in my life at 26 years old, I would experience a panic attack.

And to give you a little bit of context, a little bit of background of how we got to that point, uh, back in 2021, my wife Lindsay and I, we got married.

We moved to North Carolina uh to start our adventure in ministry together, and it was awesome.

We spent a little over three years there.

Uh while we were there, we gave birth Lindsay gave birth to our oldest uh Sawyer Jean.

We call her SJ.

Uh she just turned four this past week.

Uh and then a little bit later on, my wife gave birth to our second born, Mila Ray, uh, she turned two earlier this summer.

And so life was, we had our hands full.

Life was busy, life was awesome, it was great.

We were a little over three and a half years in, and and we felt like God was starting to call us to a different season of life.

And so we found out that Frankie Mouth Bible Church was hiring for a youth pastor, and we're like, hey, maybe, maybe this is an opportunity.

Let's pray, let's apply, let's see what happens.

And and we ended up getting the job, and we moved back to Michigan in November of 2024.

And with that came a lot of things, okay?

This is where we're originally from.

We've got family in the area, and and we didn't end up buying a house right away, okay?

So my parents had the great idea of hey, you can come stay with us, save some money.

Great.

But my parents also have there's yeah, my my dad's chirping at me.

Uh my parents also have a really small condo, okay?

So our four our family of four, with them two, and and we had a cat as well.

My dad doesn't like it, it's great, whatever.

Okay, I'm over it, obviously.

It caused some tension.

It caused some tension.

It was hard for a minute, driving here, commuting here.

Not only that, it was it was new for us.

We're we're going to a new church.

What does that look like?

Where do we fit in?

We love community, we we're relational people.

Friends, making friends is is tough.

Who's gonna be our friends?

What does that look like?

Not only that, it's you're running a ministry, you want to change some things, you see, you want to shift the culture.

How do we do that?

What do we're not making people mad?

There was so much going on.

We had two incomes in North Carolina, now we're on one.

How do we make that work financially if we want a house someday?

These were the burdens and the weight that I was carrying.

How do I lead my family?

It was a really difficult situation.

I'll never forget it.

It was a Sunday night, we had youth.

We get done with youth, and we go to McDonald's, and we're hanging out with the students and the leaders.

And by the time Lindsay and I get home and we get in bed, it's around midnight, and I was exhausted, so my plan was to fall asleep.

That's what you do.

And all of a sudden, an hour passes, and my mind is just racing.

It's racing these thoughts, all of the weight, all the what do I do?

How do I how do I live this life?

And eventually two hours pass, and it gets to a point where I'm starting to lose my breath a little bit.

I was like, this is weird, what the heck?

And it got to a point where I couldn't breathe.

And the only thought that went through my head was, just get outside.

It's the middle of winter in Michigan.

Just get outside, try to shock your body somehow.

So that's what I did.

I got out of bed, I'm crawling up the stairs, and I finally get outside and I sit on the bench on my parents' porch.

Finally get calmed down, and I'm asking myself, how did I get here?

How did I get to this moment in my life where I'm feeling this way?

Where I'm feeling restless, and it's because I I had to be honest with myself and I wanted control.

I wanted control of every area of my life.

Jesus, thank you so much for getting us here, but hey, I've got it from here.

That's what I was doing, that's the way I was living my life.

I wanted so much control over everything in my life that what started happening was that I had a restless soul.

Can I ask you this morning, how is your soul?

How is your soul?

This morning I have two truths that I believe we can take away from this passage of scripture.

And the first one I actually want to pull from the context of this, okay?

We'll get to verses 28 and 30 in just a moment, but I want to pull from the context of this chapter, chapter 11.

In the beginning, we see a man named John the Baptist, and he's in prison.

Who's John the Baptist?

John the Baptist was a Jewish man, he was a prophet, and his job, what he was sent to earth to do, is to prepare the way for the coming Messiah, to start to prepare people for the hearts, to repent that, hey, your Messiah's coming, and it's Jesus, he's here.

That was his job, to be the forerunner for Jesus, to prepare people to repent.

And John the Baptist actually is the one who baptized Jesus.

He knew Jesus.

And Jesus actually, in Matthew 11, calls John the Baptist the greatest prophet.

John the Baptist was setting the way for Jesus and knew Jesus.

Yet while he was in prison, something interesting happens here.

While he was in prison, he sends his disciples to go to Jesus and to ask him a question.

And we see that in Matthew 11, verse 3.

Matthew 11:3

This is the question that John wants to ask.

Jesus Are you the one who is to come?

Or shall we look for another?

Hang on a second.

This is John the Baptist who he spent his whole life preparing the way for Jesus, knowing Jesus.

This is what he was called to do.

And this is what he did.

And now he's at a moment in his life where he asked Jesus this question Are you actually the man?

Something must have been going on in John's soul.

I believe John was restless here.

Doubts were happening here.

So the first truth that I want to pull from our scripture today is this.

Number one, following Jesus isn't always what we expect.

Following Jesus isn't always what we expect.

See, John was a Jewish man, he was a prophet, which means he would have known the Old Testament.

He would have known the prophecies of the coming Messiah.

He would have known what Isaiah 61, verse 1 says, speaking of the Messiah.

Isaiah 61:1

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.

Catch this.

To proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

John would have been thinking, yo, isn't this the Messiah that's supposed to set captives free?

To open the prison doors and walls, and why am I still in here?

Isn't this the Messiah that was supposed to come and to break up the political stuff and the government that's happening?

This is what John was probably thinking.

He was expecting something else from Jesus.

Can I remind us today that faith is hard?

Faith is hard.

It isn't always what we expect.

See, Jesus actually tells us this multiple times.

A couple chapters earlier in Matthew, Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14, Jesus speaking to his disciples, and he says, This enter by the narrow gate.

Matthew 7:13

For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

The way to life is few.

It's hard.

I promise you, we're gonna get to verses 28 and 30, but before we do, I feel like God wants us to hear this this morning.

Chapter 10, Matthew chapter 10, 16 and 18.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Jesus says this to his disciples Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

Time out.

I'm not a sheep, but if I was, this is the last place where I'd want to be.

Okay, in the midst of a pack of wolves.

As a sheep, I wouldn't have any defense mechanisms.

I'm not fast, I'm slow, I'm not agile.

This is the last thing, but yeah, this is how Jesus is describing sending out his disciples.

He continues to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you and their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them, and the Gentiles will be flogged and dragged.

Jesus saying, This is not easy.

Following me is not easy.

Just a couple verses later, verse 21 through 23.

Still, Jesus speaking, brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

But the one who endures will be saved when they persecute you, not if, when they persecute you and one time, flee to the next.

I don't know about you, but I'm I'm relational.

Like I said, I love people.

I want other people to love me back when people don't, when people hate me, that disrupts my soul.

I don't like that.

But she's saying, no, hey, you will be hated.

You will be hated because of me.

This is all happening right before chapter 11, and maybe for you, life hasn't been what you expected with Jesus.

Can I tell you, you aren't alone in that?

We see this in John the Baptist.

He's restless, he's doubting, he's questioning.

Is this really the man he says he is?

As a pastor, there's moments in my life where I doubt, where I struggle with faith, when I'm in difficult situations, when I have unmet expectations, when I'm short-sighted and all I can see is the thing I'm in and the season I'm in, and I don't know what God has in store.

Faith is hard.

There are moments where we expect something else from God, and when we do, we start to question them when it doesn't happen.

God, where are you?

God, you should have showed up for me.

You should have shown up for my family.

What are you doing?

God, how could you allow this to happen?

See, we see how John the Baptist, he expected the Messiah to bring judgment, to set captives free.

Yeah, he's sitting in prison.

And then we see later in Matthew 11, verses 20 to 24, the cities Jesus is speaking about, calling them to repentance.

Matthew 11:20–24

They're expecting a political savior.

But then Jesus comes and and he calls them to repentance.

And we see the religious leaders, we see the Pharisees, they they expected rule keeping.

And yet Jesus comes and and he was offering them relationship.

See, they are expecting Jesus to look different, to act different, and they are missing their Messiah, they are missing their savior.

Has your life with Jesus ever looked different than you expected?

Have you ever expected more from him?

The first truth that we can pull is that life with Jesus isn't always what we expect.

So following Jesus' heart.

If we do have burdens in this life, if we have unmet expectations, if we have moments of doubt, then where do we go?

What do we do?

What what actually does Jesus offer us in the middle of those things?

Is it an easier life?

The answer is a different source.

What striving never can.

Jesus gives.

What striving never can.

Matthew 11, 28.

I told you we'd get there.

Jesus is speaking to the multitude.

He says, Come to me.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Most of the time we take this verse as just a general promise.

We say, sweet, that's it.

I just come to Jesus and voila, sunshine and rainbows.

Life is easy.

Life is simple.

No, in context, that's not what Jesus is promising at all.

Jesus is not promising a life without work.

He's not promising a life without responsibility or without suffering.

No, he is offering us rest.

But what does this rest look like?

The word that is used here means to refresh, to pause, to revitalize.

Jesus offers us a refresh for our souls.

Jesus in this moment is speaking to those that are crushed by heavy burdens, not only formed by life, but by religious legalism.

See, many of his listeners were spiritually exhausted from trying to meet the demand of the religious leaders.

They placed enormous burdens on them.

They obeyed the Mosaic law, which was uh over 600 commands that God had given them to obey.

But on top of this, the Pharisees, they what they would call a fence around the law, is they created even more rules and things to obey so that they wouldn't even get close to touching the law.

And this created burdens for the people.

And the Pharisees didn't help them, didn't help them carry anything.

See, the law was put in place to show people what sin was and prove that everyone falls short of God's perfect standard.

To put it simply, the law was in place to show the need for a savior.

God's law was already impossible to obey.

And by the religious leaders adding to it, they made his law burdensome.

We see in 1 John 5 3 that God's commands were never supposed to be burdensome.

John says this for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

So what are his commands to us now?

Matthew 22, Jesus is asked this question.

Jesus, what is the greatest command?

And Jesus replies with this, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And the second is like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus is saying, Hey, would you come to me?

Those that are feeling like you just can't do it anymore, would you come to me?

Would you walk with me?

Maybe that's where you're at this morning.

Maybe you grew up with religious legalism, with leaders telling you you have to do and do and do and try and try and try, and then once you feel good enough, then you can come to God.

Or maybe you've never even said yes to Christianity or yes to Jesus because you've looked at Christianity.

You know, there's that's a big list.

That's a those are a lot of commands to follow.

I can't do that.

Jesus is saying, Would you come to me?

It's not by what you can do, but it's but by but by what I have already done.

I can offer peace in the times of panic, I can offer hope in the times of weariness.

He continues in verse 29, 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.

Jesus offers us rest from striving.

He offers us a shared partnership with him.

We're gonna get to the meaning of this yoke in just a moment, but before we do, in this verse, Jesus is showing us his true character.

He says, Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.

Jesus is saying, This is who I am.

This word gentle here can be translated to humble.

I am humble, I am meek, I am accessible.

Even in all of my splendor and all of my glory, I'm the most accessible man that you will ever meet in your life.

Jesus is accessible to you.

He invites you to come to him, to walk with him.

Jesus gives what striving never can.

So can I ask you?

How is your soul?

Are you tired?

Have you been trying to strive?

Strive for status, strive for for comfort, striving to do the right things for God.

My big idea this morning is this.

True rest is found by walking with Jesus.

True rest is found by walking with Jesus.

It isn't found in doing more.

No, it's found by walking with Jesus.

So what does this look like?

What does this look like to walk with Jesus?

He mentions, take my yoke upon you.

And we get to verse 30.

And he says, This for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I've wrestled with this all week.

Why would Jesus use a yoke in this example?

It didn't make sense to me.

Because a yoke didn't mean rest.

A yoke was used for work.

It was the complete opposite of rest.

So why would he use it?

I've got a picture this morning of what an oxen yoke looks like.

And this is the picture that Jesus is trying to make here.

A yoke was a heavy wooden bar that farmers would lay over a pair of oxen, and with that they would attach a plow to it, and the oxen would work together to then plow to till the field.

And what's interesting is the farmer would take a younger, more immature, less experienced oxen and he put them in the yoke.

And then he would go and he would grab a more mature, older, already trained ox and come and place them in the yoke.

So now they're side by side and things would go smooth.

Things would go smooth if the younger one would trust the mature one.

If the younger one would would submit to the mature one, if the younger one would be guided by the mature one.

But see, things would start to get really, really difficult when the younger one wanted to do things his own way.

If he wanted to be faster, to speed things up, if he wanted to lag behind, maybe he wanted to go his own way and we're going straight and totally wants to go the opposite way.

Things would become difficult.

See, this is the picture that Jesus is saying, Hey, would you come to me?

Would you take my yoke upon you?

Would you step into the yoke with me?

Would you walk with me side by side?

Would you trust me?

Would you submit to me?

Would you learn from me?

See, and this is where I was at in my life.

I would say I was in the yoke with Jesus.

But I was like, Jesus, hey, I'm good.

I'm good, I've got this.

And I was doing my own thing.

God, I'm good.

I've got the ministry under control.

I've got my family under control.

My finances under control.

I'm good.

I don't need you here.

Jesus, for my yoke is easy.

This word easy means kind.

His yoke is caring.

His yoke is kind.

He's saying, Would you come to me?

Would you step into the yoke?

Not that there's there is gonna be work.

There is gonna be hardships, there is gonna be pain, there is gonna be hurt, but hey, I've got you.

I'm gonna carry you.

Would you walk with me?

Would you trust me?

Would you learn to obey me?

Would you learn the things of my nature?

Would you learn the way that I love?

Would you come?

Would you take my yoke upon you?

And would you learn from the way that I lived?

Would you walk with me?

Are you in the yoke with Jesus this morning?

Are you in his yoke?

Maybe you're like me and you're sitting here and like, yeah, yeah, I'm in his yoke, but man, I have been striving.

I have been trying to control the outcomes of things.

Jesus is just saying, Hey, would you walk with me?

Would you walk with me?

With every head bowed and eye closed, we're gonna pray this morning, and I don't want to make the mistake of thinking that everybody in this room knows and has a relationship with Jesus.

And so if that's you this morning, maybe you're saying, yeah, you're right.

Like, I'm I I don't think I'm in the yoke with Jesus, I'm not in the yoke with Jesus.

We're gonna pray in a moment, but would you make this your prayer?

The Bible tells us that today is the day of salvation.

Don't wait another day.

Scripture tells us that if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and that he died on the cross and rose again, then you will be saved.

That it's not by what we can do, but it's by what he's already done for us on the cross.

Maybe you're in here and you're saying, Yeah, I'm in the yoke, but I'm just trying my own thing.

Would you come back to him?

Would you come and would you walk with him?

Jesus, we thank you for today.

We thank you for your grace, we thank you for your mercy.

Father, right now for those who don't know you and want to make that decision, want to say yes to you, will they believe that in their hearts?

Would they confess it with their mouth?

Will they tell somebody?

And would they submit to you, would they walk with you through life, even in the hardship, even in the pain, even in the burdens?

Father, for those that have been striving and striving and trying to control and control.

Father, your word says that there's now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

Would they just come back and would they walk with you step in step?

Jesus, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for your holiness, your righteousness.

We thank you, Jesus.

Father, we love you, we honor you, and we praise you in Jesus' name, amen, amen, and amen.