Easy Yoke

So, so say this with me today. Religion is painful, Very

painful. Say very painful.

If you're a man, just just bend your legs for a moment.

Just just cross your legs. I'm just going to preach from

the Bible, say religion is very painful.

And what's religion in Afrikaans?

What's Dean's is buyer a no, say a no, a no.

OK let's read Galatians 5. We're doing a series on freedom

and and every one of us, I don't know if you, if you've ever

bought a car and it looks very beautiful and you buy this.

You buy it with full faith. It's like you go in there and

you buy this car and you've got faith in your heart and the

salesman that they're a special breed.

They they they say this car is the best second hand car you

will ever buy. It's fully serviced.

You're not sure where, but it's fully serviced.

There's a record, you're not quite sure if the record's

right, but there's a record of the servicing and and as you get

into it, you go for the test drive and everything's fine.

And then you buy it and you drive out and as you come and

stop quickly it pulls to the left.

Have you ever had that? It's all like you think I'm my

hat and then pulls to the right and then you take up a sport

like balls. You must be careful of balls

because more people die playing balls in rugby.

It's it's a true story. It's a promise you.

It's a true story. It's it's facts.

Yeah, just because all those play balls and I know that, but

they're they're more heart attacks on the Bowling Green

than they are on the rugby field.

It's a true story. But every bowling ball that you

pick up, if you go one way, it will do this.

If you turn it around the other way to go that like that and

every one of us has got those bends, when you push the brakes

hard, we go to the left or we go to the right and when you throw

the ball it goes to the left or to the right.

That's why we need the Bible because all of us have got a

bent one way or the other, either ward towards religion or

towards a moral licentiousness. I was sitting in a meeting this

week friends and and and I remember meeting a girl 20 years

ago and I couldn't remember How I Met her but she happened to

come to church 3 weeks ago and now she's got a boyfriend and

they don't live in town And she said, can I have coffee with

you? And I said absolutely.

And I couldn't quite remember How I Met her but I remember

that I I journeyed with her for a while and we're sitting having

coffee this week And and they are absolutely in love and they

they are besotted with each other and they found God and

they're free and they're experiencing this new

relationship. And then this man said I went

into a anti abortion rally with with with these placards

Christians against abortion And I looked at this little girl.

She's not a little girl anymore. She's a woman.

I looked at her and her tears just started falling from my

eyes and I started to cry because I met her because she

had an abortion when she was a young girl.

I remember her walking up into my office in Durban with her

parents and she thought she was going to walk into the law.

She thought she was going to walk into some cross head master

and she walked into my office and I said this is the the

lounge of a father and her and I became friends around

redemption. And the man she's dating now was

the guy carrying the placard saying Christians against

abortion, Christians against abortion.

And now he's dating a girl who's had an abortion and and and now

you've got to find God's grace because one is pulling to the

left and the other one is pulling to the right.

And I sat there looking at this beautiful couple.

I just sobbed. And I thought, God, only you can

take someone from extreme religion and from from extreme

wildness and bring them into a relationship of grace.

Amen. And then, you know the amazing

thing. Cathy just happened to be in

that restaurant. Cathy Dolenberg happened to be

in that restaurant. And when the bill came, somebody

said, are your bills being paid? Of course it's been paid.

I mean and and I said was it a girl called Kathy?

She said yes, it was a it was a lady called Kathy.

But she's left already. And now I'm sitting here

thinking we're talking about God's grace and the bill gets

paid and then that's how we extend the Kingdom of God,

little bit by little bit in every situation, whether we're

having coffee or having lunch. So we have got teal and tankies

go there afterwards. There's ladies in our church,

teal and tankies, started by by a business empowering other

people, which just go and bless them.

And and the money that we make there goes towards the pastor

who needs care. And so we take that money, we

give it to a pastor who needs care.

And people come and say to me, oh, why are you turning God's

house into a market? Man, jump on your horse.

This is not a flipping temple. This is just brick and mortar

keeping the rain and the sun off us.

We are the temple of God. You can't turn this thing into a

market. Amen.

I'm going to talk to you just now about religion because

you're going to get Ana. Let's read Galatians 5.

Are you with me? Nice to see you.

It is for freedom, say freedom. It is for freedom that Christ

has set us free. It is for freedom that Christ

has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let

yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

It is for freedom's sake that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm military term, then, and do not let yourselves be

burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Mark my words. I, Paul, tell you that if you

let yourself be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to

you at all. Every one of us have got

external signs. I saw it this week.

I saw two guys shake hands. That means you went to great

college. That means you went to Alfie's.

This means you went to Boys High Every We've got all these

external things, don't we, That tell us whether we in or we out,

don't we The way we shake hands, the way we worship.

I did a black wedding friends. I didn't know this.

But. But in our culture, when the

bride walks in, you stand up. That's honor.

And the black culture, when the bride's in, you sit down, that's

honor. I said everybody stands and no

but but friends, it's not whether we stand or whether we

sit. Is it because if those are the

things we are going to never able to be able to get on with

each other Because because now we stand or whether we sit or

whether we stand or sit, then Christ has no value to us.

Because Christ lives way above whether we stand or whether we

sit or whether we shake hands like this or shake hands like

that, or whether we grew up in a church or grew up with other

church. Whether we were in anti abortion

rallies or whether we had an abortion.

Christ has to come in and set us free, completely and utterly

free again. I declare to every man who lets

himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole

law, the whole law. 613 laws. Don't do this.

Don't do this. Don't do you must, you must.

You must. You're trying to be justified by

law. You are trying to be

justifiable, have been alienated from Christ.

You have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await

through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope,

say, hope, Friends. Most of our relationships in our

lives are based on history. I have Christmas with my family

because I have a history with my family.

I grew up as a dire. I have history with my family.

I meet my mates from school because we played rugby together

and we talk about the good old days, 30 or 40 years ago.

I have friends from university, I have friends from rugby, we I

have friends from church that I've done church with.

But the but the relationship of the church is a relationship of

the future. We are here together not because

we have the same past, but because we have the same future.

And So what will separate us is our past.

What will hold us together is our future.

You understand that? That's the hope.

Hope is not like our hope. Tomorrow is a sunny day because

there's a wedding. That's not the hope.

The hope that we speak about is an anchor that is rooted in our

future, that we hold on to for dear life and we draw it closer.

So whether we sit or stand at a wedding, whether went to office

or to boys house, makes absolutely no difference.

That's historical. What holds us together is that

you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives together.

The rest of our lives we're going to spend together.

And because of that, I'll lay hold of the hope and I'll bring

it closer. Does that make sense?

So it is because of our future that we have hope, not because

of our past. For in Christ Jesus, neither

circumcision nor uncircumcision, we're going to do a test just

now. Has any value.

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through

love. You were running a good race.

Who cut in on you and kept you? Amazing term.

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you?

Doctor Sakis Neyman. Who?

Who cut in on you? That's the issue.

That's the issue. That's the issue.

We are talking about external signs that qualify us for our

future. When I'm telling you it's an

internal happening inside of your heart who cut in on you?

You're running a good race. You're running a good race.

Let's put that video up, if you don't mind, all the way across

the road. Everyone pretty much in the

ditch is what fan art Julian Alafleep didn't hit the deck,

he's about one of the only riders.

So yeah, trying. To.

Hold a sign out for the camera got absolutely shouldn't have

been there in the first place. You're running a good race.

You're running a good race. Who cut in on you?

Do you see friends? When one person goes down, you

can stop a whole peloton behind you.

That's why we have to keep going at this, keep going at this,

keep going at this until the whole community, because it goes

on and says this. This kind of persuasion does not

come from the one who calls you. A little bit of yeast works

through the whole batch of dough.

One guy says you have to be baptized.

Somebody that says you must be baptized when you're a child,

somebody else says you must tithe, you must, you must, you

must, you must. And all of a sudden this

generation that we're trying to get free get tripped by one

person and people start falling, that that's why you said Rudy.

Why do you keep going on it? I will keep going on it until

every single one of us understands we are here by the

grace of God alone in Jesus, finished work alone.

And anything else of that is taking the value of Christ away.

Any external behavior is taking away the value of Christ.

The one who is throwing into confusion will pay the penalty

whoever he may be. Brothers, If I'm still preaching

circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

In that case, the offence of the cross has been abolished.

As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way.

And don't stop with the foreskin.

Cut the whole thing. Because you're messing up the

grace of God. You're messing up the grace of

God. Stand, sit, shake hands.

Don't shake hands. What?

What gives us our identity? Our identity is Christ.

Anything else needs to be cut off completely.

You, my brothers, were called to be free.

But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.

Rather, serve one another and love.

The entire law is summed up in a single command.

Love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on batting and

devouring each other, watch out or you'll be destroyed by each

other, Simon. Just for no other reason than

because you're beautiful where you is.

You've gone out. Simon.

Come here, You Beautiful thing. And where is there?

Is there a child in here? Yeah, no three children.

Bring bring one of your children.

Put the yoke up there, if you don't mind.

Put the yoke up. That's a yoke.

Afrikaans. We call it that.

A yoke. Not a joke.

Yoke. There are two things we get

yoked to. We get yoked to sin.

It says in the past, Galatians, you were enslaved to the basic

principles of this world, and we get yoked to the law.

It is for freedom's sake that Christ has set you free.

Do not let yourselves become enslaved to the say it the yoke

of slavery. So come and stand here, Simon.

Put your if you don't mind putting.

OK. Is he too shy?

He's OK. He's too shy.

OK, too shy. Come, Ellen, put that over your

shoulder there, like that, and put this on your shoulder and

you can see he's taller, so you can see who's stronger.

You can see who's got the power. And always friends, the weight

is going to lean here, always the weight is going to lean

here. So when you're in sin, you are

in partnership. You are in yoke with sin.

You're yoked together. So this girl will never be able

to turn that man in a million years.

He's too strong, so wherever he decides to go, she has to go

because she's got a noose around her neck.

So if he says we go left, she goes left.

If he says we go right, she goes right.

If he says we're going straight, we go straight, he said.

If we're going backwards back into our old life, back into

sin, back into pornography, back into she goes, because she's got

no choice, because she's bound, then we swap it.

If you can come and stand this out, Simon and your child.

And all we do is we swap our licentious lifestyle now for a

religious lifestyle. But the law is also more

powerful than me. And so wherever the law goes, I

have to go. And so now I'm obeying the law,

obeying the law, obeying the law.

So keep standing there. Let's put up Acts 15.

Let's read it together. I don't know where our preach's

going to go, so men came down from Judea to Antioch.

We're teaching the brothers. Unless you're circumcised

according to the custom taught about Moses.

Unless you shake hands like an Affairs boy or like a Gray boy,

or or like if you if you haven't come through the the religious

ranks of Pretoria. If you have not, then you cannot

be A to this day, there are people in Pretoria that don't

accept me because I'm an outsider, that came in to preach

in the religious institution. Think you're an outsider.

You never grew up here. Go and jump in the lake.

I'm in. Christ.

I'm telling you this, friends, because there's so many things

that shake us this port. You cannot be saved.

And unless you're circumcised, you cannot be saved.

And unless you're baptized, you cannot be saved.

We'll steal that to the thief on the cross.

Tell that to the thief on the cross.

And I believe children belong to God.

I believe every aborted child goes to heaven.

I believe that we're going to see millions of children in

heaven aborted. And so if you're sitting here

having an abortion, your child is in heaven.

The Bible says children belong to God.

This brought Port and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate

with them. So Port and Barnas are

appointed, along with some of the believers, to go to

Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.

That church sent them on their way, and as they traveled

through Phoenicia and Samaria, they're told how the Gentiles

had been converted. This news made all the brothers

very glad. When they came to Jerusalem,

they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders to

whom they reported everything God had done through them.

Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the

Pharisees stood up and said the Gentiles must be circumcised.

You have to add something to your salvation and required to

obey the law of Moses. The apostles and the elders met

to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got

up and addressed them. Brothers, you know that some

time ago God made a choice among us that the Gentiles might hear

from our lips the message of the gospel and belief.

God knows the heart, so that he accepted them by giving the Holy

Spirit to him, just as he did to us.

He made no distinction between us and them, say us and them.

There is no distinction, friends, between US and them.

Ayanda, do you mind joining me, please?

There's no distinction between US and them.

There is no distinction between US and them.

This city decided to put in law. The distinction between that,

and so in the roots of the city is the distinction between that.

If that is still our distinction, then Christ is of

no value, and he has no value according to the law of our

previous land historically. But if we turn and we look to

the future and to the hope to which he has given us, and

together we lay hold of that and pull it closer, and I give

Christ value, then I give Him value and He gives me value.

Great joy, brilliant picture. And now there is no distinction

between us and them, because we are in Christ.

This is just one picture. We can make it male and female.

We can make it English and Afrikaans.

We can make it rich and poor. We can make it educated and

educated. I want to tell you, whatever the

strong man is, he will pull you around for the rest of your

life. And it's starting to get heavy,

hey? Yeah, but it's starting to get

heavy. It's starting to get heavy with

tears in my eyes. Because you have people in this

church that live under the burden of shame and guilt and

fear and condemnation and sin and not doing nothing.

Not good enough. And you've been too bad enough,

and it's and you just sit there, think, God, How?

Now then why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of a

disciples A yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able

to bear? No, we believe it is through the

grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that we are saved just as they

are. The whole assembly became silent

as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the

miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles

through them. When they finished, James spoke

and said, Brothers, listen to me, it doesn't matter.

Matthew 11 Please come to me all you who are wary and burdened,

and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn

from me, For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will

find rest for your souls. For my this is what Jesus does.

Take it off. Take it off, Takes it off, takes

it off. Just like, keep standing there,

keep standing there. And he fulfills.

He takes the whole of sin and he absorbs sin into himself and he

absorbs a wrath of God into himself and he takes the whole

law and he fulfills the law And that yoke, that yoke that kept

us enslaved becomes Jesus whose arm is long enough to get to

Ayanda and his arm is long enough to get to the girl who

had an abortion. And his arm is long enough to

get to the guy who is at an anti abortion rally.

And he pulls them in close and says this.

Don't devalue Christ. Don't try and do anything.

Now your shoulders are sore. Now you've got to go for a

massage, then you have to go, and then eventually you've got

to go to the chiropractor. And you've got to spend money to

try and carry this load which Christ carried for you.

Say this if I don't know what time it is, just put your arms

out. Bump.

People say it is for freedom's sake that Christ has set me

free. Do not let yourself be burdened

again. Because eventually, friends,

somehow the enemy has got it in such a way that this is what

will end up happening. This poor girl will have to

carry this thing all by herself. And it just rests.

Yeah, and and it has been saying raw, you can't.

You can he wants to step in and and and and she wants to protect

and Mel saying hey babe be careful.

And I'm this is I love this girl.

But there are people that are literally dying under the weight

of guilt and shame and condemnation and

disqualification. And you think that your sin is

too far for God to get to. And he says, come to me, all you

who are tired, I'll give you rest and it doesn't matter.

Keep standing there. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how strong this guy is.

It doesn't matter how many weights he's lifted.

If he keeps standing here by tonight his shoulder is sore,

but tomorrow morning his shoulder wants to fall off.

By the next day his knee starts shaking and he stands here as a

strong man thing. I can do this.

I can do this if you think you can do it.

Christ has no value. So Christ takes it off and he

stands in front of me, says He, says, Come to me, come to me,

not to the law, not to the church, not to religion, not to

baptism. Come to me All you who are weary

and heavy laden. Come to me, and I will put my

yoke upon you. I'll put my yoke upon you, for

my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

And in me you will find rest three CI rest, say rest.

But we don't use our rest to commit sin.

People say, oh, if you preach like this or people are going to

do everything. No, no, no, no.

The hands of God are wide enough for the law and for sin.

It pulls me close. You say do you preach tithing as

the Lord? No, I don't.

You're free financially, you're completely free.

And then God comes and says, I want you to give me access.

Seek first the Kingdom I want, in relationships and in time and

in your business and in your words and your money.

But it's it's not going to be by the yoke.

It's going to be by the yoke of Christ.

Say this. I am free.

I will stay free for freedom's sake.

Christ has set me free. Never again will I be burdened

by the yoke of slavery. Amen.