Three Words THAT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

What would you do if I told you that I have an answer for all your anxieties? Would you be interested? What would you do if I told you that I have an answer for all the areas of your life where you’re uptight, stressed out, burned out, and frustrated? Well, I don’t, but Jesus does. I can’t solve your problems, but I can introduce you to One who can. And that’s the Lord Jesus Christ.  THIS MORNING We ‘re going to  look at three life-changing words. They are action words. They require something FROM us. They are commands and invitations. Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus said,  “Come unto to Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.            Come, Take, learn…. Pray..pray..pray..pray

I want to take the context of these three verses, and I want you to follow with me, starting back in Matthew chapter 10. Jesus is teaching His disciples about following Him. He wants them to come to Him, take His yoke, and learn from Him. The context is important. We have to take these verses in their context.

In chapter 10 Jesus tells the disciples, “Fear Me, reverence Me, honor Me” (see v. 28). He says, “Confess Me” (see v. 32). After I reverence God, then I have to confess Him, not be ashamed of Him. Then He calls on them to “love Me” (see v. 37). We won’t come to someone we don’t confess or believe in, and we won’t go to somebody we don’t love. We’re never going to get past the barrier of pride unless we’ve already gotten past the barrier of the need to confess and the need to love.

Love Me (v. 37). Follow Me (v. 38). Die for Me (v. 39). Once we’ve reached the point where we’re willing to die for Christ, then coming to Him isn’t a problem. Taking His yoke isn’t a problem. Learning from Him isn’t a problem if we have come to the point where we’re willing to die to self for Him.

These words were recorded for us to hear. Somebody may say, “Well, you know, God has never spoken to me. God has never said come to me.” We just Read it; God is speaking. The question is, Are we listening?

I. Come

God has always been speaking. He speaks through His Word. He speaks through other people. He speaks through events and circumstances. He’s speaking all around us. But are we listening? Now, why is He speaking? Because He wants us to come to Him. And who is He telling to come to Him? Those of us who are weary, heavy laden, worn out, frustrated, burdened, burned out, tired, and weary.

What will happen when we come to Jesus? He will give us rest.

The three key words are come, take, and learn. We SHOULDN’T get them out of order. We have to come to Jesus first AND KNOW hiM. Jesus was speaking, and all kinds of people were listening to Him. To the lost He says, “Come for salvation.” To the saved, to those who believe in Him, He is saying, “Come to me for sanctification.” Come to Christ. Those three words summarize His life. Why? Because WHEN we come to HIM we come to hope. Jesus summarizes everything about His life and His teachings in these three words, “Come to me,” for He is holy and He is our only hope in this life and the life to come.

To come to Christ is to throw ourselves on His mercy, to be desperate enough to admit that we can’t do it on our own. We can’t live the Christian life in our own strength. We can’t tackle this problem. Congratulations! Now we’re at a point where God can work with us.

Jesus said, “Come to me.” He didn’t say, “If it’s convenient, or if it fits in your schedule.” Here’s why. Because every day of our lives, we’re either moving toward Jesus, or we’re moving away from Him. If we’re standing still, we’re backsliding. We are either moving toward Him, or we’re moving away from Him.

Coming to Jesus is not a burden, coming to Jesus releases us from  burdens. He didn’t say, “Come to be religious.” He said, “Come to Me.” He wants us to have a relationship with Him. If we are weary, heavy laden, burdened, and stressed out, the only way we’re going to overcome these problems is to come to Christ in a real relationship. When we do, He’ll lift the burdens from us.

What He promises, He produces. Rest in our spirits. Rest in our minds. Rest in our hearts. Rest in our souls. God wants to give us rest. We need to answer the cal to COME TO HIM. Now, 2nd

II. Take

The second thing Jesus says is for us to “Take My yoke upon you” (Matt. 11:29). A yoke doesn’t sound restful, but it’s one of the most common figures of speech in the Hebrew language. A yoke indicated submission to an obligation or an occupation. A yoke was a sign of submission. Jesus was saying, “You need to take the yoke as a free and deliberate choice of your will. I’m not going to come and force this thing on you. You need to take it on yourself and put your head in it.” And by the way, we can’t get in a yoke unless we bow our heads. It’s a sign of humility, a sign of surrender.

Jesus didn’t offer a pillow. He didn’t offer a massage! He didn’t offer a recliner. He offered a yoke—something that is used for labor. Sounds like He was just adding to the labor, But the yoke wasn’t a way to get out of work, The yoke was a way to make the work lighter. And Jesus is saying, “If you yoke up with Me, we’ll do this together.”

A yoke has to have two in it to work. When Jesus says that His yoke is easy, it means that His yoke fits well. Jesus, as a carpenter, was excellent at making things, including farming implements such as yokes out of wood. His earthly father, Joseph taught Him how to make these agricultural implements. Yokes were made out of wood. The owner would bring his ox in, and the carpenter would design the yoke to fit that particular animal. Farmers didn’t just go down to Home Depot and ask for any old standard yoke off the shelf.

No, yokes were designed, carved, cut, and shaped to fit the particular animal that was being used in the plowing process. And Jesus says, “If you’ll take My yoke, it’s easy and will fit you well.” God never intended for us to be yoked up with Him and for it be a burden. God intended for us to yoke up with Him and for it to be a blessing. He said that His burden is light, which means that it’s easy to carry. Why? Because this yoke is not placed on us by a slave driver. This yoke is placed on us by a Savior who invites us to come to Him. He said for us to take His yoke—and it is easy.

God never expects or demands that we do this on our own. He says, “Yoke up with Me, and get in partnership with Me, and together we’ll face your burdens. We’ll face your problems and your obstacles together.” Only when we yoke up with Him do we find that He helps us in carrying the burden.

Now here’s something important so don’t miss it. Jesus is assuming that we understand it’s His yoke. The assumption of these verses is that we understand it’s His yoke, which means He’s setting the direction, He’s determining the pace, and He’s deciding how far and how much we do.

We better not go out and run ahead of God and then ask Him to catch up with us. We walk step-by-step with Him, not pulling against Him, not pulling away from Him, not resisting His leadership, but working in this light and easy, well-fitting yoke, walking side by side with Him. Why? Because He’s the lead, the One leading us into the work. He’s the One in charge of the pace. He’s the One in charge of the direction. When we yoke up with Christ, it’s not so much us asking God to help us out; it’s us learning to join Him in His work.

One of the reasons church work is so frustrating for people, and one of the reasons people get out of the ministry, and one of the reasons people work for a while in a church and then quit, is that they’re trying to do God’s work in the energy of their flesh rather than yoking up with Christ. Our prayer should be, “Lord, what do You want me to do? Where do You want me to serve? How do You want me to walk beside You so that I can accomplish Your work, not my ideas. I want to know Your plans about how I’m going to get the work done in this church.”

There’ve been times when I’ve wanted to get out of the yoke and get ahead of God but When I stop and listen, Jesus always says, “ get back in the yoke. I’m in charge; you’re not. Get in the yoke. Walk with Me, I will lead you. Put your rest in me”

There have been some times when pastoring  has seemed like a heavy burden. It’s been frustrating at times. But when I’m in the yoke and letting Jesus lead, it’s not. I don’t know how to explain that, except to tell you that the yoke God made for me fits me well. And when I am yoked up with Him, I’m walking in His power, and not my own.

III. Learn

Come, take, learn. “Learn from me.” Jesus is the teacher. First you come, then you take, then you learn. And by the way, we never graduate from the school of learning. I’ve met people who tell me they are too old to learn, too old to do, to old to memorize Scripture, to teach to serve. You’re never too old to learn to do what’s right. “Learn from Me,” Jesus says. He’s the teacher.

The Bible is the only book that we can sit down and read where the author and the subject of the book is there to teach us what it says. When I sit down with this Bible, the Holy Spirit comes into the room with me to say, “If you listen to Me, I’ll teach you what this Bible says.” He’s not only the lesson; He’s the Teacher of the lesson. He’s the Author, the Perfecter, the Finisher, the Teacher, the Educator, the One who gets us through. He teaches us by what He did, and He did what He taught. He’s consistent.

So let me give you some suggestions from this lesson. First of all, learn His mind. Php 2:5 tells us, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” Second, learn His life, taking the form of a bond servant. We’ll never have a servant’s heart if we never learn to lower our heads in humility to get in the yoke. We may think we’re too good for that. We’re better than that. We don’t need to do that. That’s good for other people, but it’s not good for us. If this is our attitude, we’ll never experience what Jesus has promised.

Third, learn from His life, from His humility. He humbled Himself (Phil. 2:8). If we want to have power with God, we too have to humble ourselves before Him.

Fourth, we must learn from His heart. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. He cared about children. He sat down by a well with a woman nobody else would have talked to. He went to the house of a Pharisee. Jesus went where nobody else would go because He knew that the healthy didn’t need a physician, The sick needed a physician. And so we learn from His heart.

One of the things I pray for in my life is, “Lord, give me a heart that is like Yours. Help me to see this community the way You see it. Give me a burden for people, to be brokenhearted and burdened because of what I see.”

Fifth, learn to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. If we’re going to learn from Jesus, we need to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. If we’re exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, we’ll no longer use that standard line, “Well, that’s just the way I am.” Jesus came to make us new creations in Christ. He came to make us new in Christ. “Well,” we say, “that’s the way we were raised.” Well, we need to get over our raising and grow up into  Christ like maturity!  Your life should give evidence of the fruit of the Spirit. Many Christians give more evidence of the works of the flesh than they do of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16–25).

Sixth, learn to discipline your life. Bible study. Get alone often with God. It’s important for us to spend time with God.  In personal and corporate Bible study, in worship, in prayer, in fellowship & in forgiving others. We can’t live this life of following Jesus on our own. Jesus knows us. He created us. And He says, “Come, take, learn.”

And look at what He promises. We will find rest for our souls. He didn’t say one out of twenty of us would find rest. He didn’t say a percentage of us would find rest. He said, if we come, if we take, and if we learn, all of us will find rest.

Now, one last thought. Look at Simon Peter.. Jesus comes to Simon Peter one day and says, “Simon, I’m going to make you into a rock”  Matt. 16:18. And when He said it, Simon Peter didn’t say a word, which was a rare occasion in his life. Jesus said, “I’m going to make you into a rock.” It shocked Peter. Why? Because Peter, always tried hard but, knew he had weaknesses. He knew his own thoughts. And as he looked into the mirror of his life, he realized that Jesus was promising him something he could never attain on his own.

. You’re not much right now, but I’m going to make you into a rock.”

Simon Peter knew he couldn’t make himself into a rock.

You know what Jesus did to Simon Peter? He did exactly what He promised in Matthew 11. “Come to Me, and I’ll give you rest.” He

didn’t lecture Simon Peter on his failures. He just gave Simon Peter another job to do. Isn’t that just like Jesus, and so unlike us? I mean, we want to remember everyone’s failures. And Jesus says, “OK, everybody knows you failed. Now what are you going to do from here?   What are you going to do from this point on?”

“Simon, if you love Me, feed My sheep.” God trusted Simon Peter and gave him a job to do. Peter wasn’t perfect. But God trusted him enough that when it came time for the Holy Spirit to fall and for the church to disperse into the world, He laid his hand on Simon Peter and said, “Peter, you’re the evangelist for today.” And three thousand people were saved (see Acts 2:14–41).

Simon Peter did with the power of the Holy Spirit, in a ten-minute sermon what he couldn’t do for three and one-half years. He saw the glory of God fall on his life. He had tried, he had tried, and he had tried. But in an atmosphere of forgiveness, faith, and prayer, suddenly everything changed about Simon Peter.

Do we need to come to Jesus? YES .. If we come, we need to take. Take His yoke.  Get yoked up with Him. And once we take, we need to learn. learn His mind, learn His life, learn from His life, learn from His heart, learn to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit,  learn to discipline your life through good spiritual discipline.