THE “TAKES” OF JESUS

It is ironic that the people, who taught God’s “Law”, did not believe Jesus’ message. The people who thought that they were wise did not believe his message. Humble people knew that Jesus spoke the truth. They were like little children. Some people are proud that they know a lot about God. But they do not really understand him.

Jesus said that he is the Son. He is the only person who knows God, the Father. Only Jesus can show people what God is like. John 14:9 makes a similar statement. “The person who has seen me has seen the Father”

The Jewish religion had many laws, and the leaders made additional laws that compounded the problem of keeping God’s laws. People who tried to obey all of them became very tired. The laws were like a heavy load that people must carry.

A “yoke” is a special piece of wood. The farmer puts one on the neck of his oxen (big cows) when they worked for him. Jesus being a carpenter by profession knew how to make good yokes. They fitted well, and they did not make the animal’s neck sore. The word yoke is used here to paint a picture that speaks for itself. They were talking about how they must obey the law. Peter spoke about the “yoke” that the people had found difficult (Acts 15:10). Reference scriptures Gal 5:1(bondage), Matt 23:4 (emblem of slavery), and 1 Tim 6:1 (affliction). In these verses, Jesus was referring to his own and their experience as Jews. He invited people to follow him. They would find that their life with Jesus was ‘easy’. It is ‘easy’ because Jesus cares about his disciples. They would find that his load is light. It is ‘light’ because a disciple follows the example of Jesus. A disciple does not need to obey hundreds of rules. Jesus is gentle and he is humble. He allows people to be free. Then they obey him because they love him.

This is a strange paradox, I am already overloaded and weary, now you want me to take on some new weight, in order to be eased and find rest. Look at Psalm 55:22.

Whosoever will come after me It seems that Christ formed, on the proselytism of the Jews, the principal qualities which he required in the proselytes of his covenant.

Christ established his covenant on the same principal qualities as the Jews, come after me, to be proselytes. Look at what the Jews required of new proselytes; meaning new converts. 

The first condition of new converts among the Jews was, that they that came to embrace their religion should come voluntarily, and that neither force nor influence should be employed in this business. This is also the first condition required by Jesus Christ, and which he considers as the foundation of all the rest. A man be willing to come after me will have rest, peace, made free.

The second condition required was, that they should perfectly renounce all their prejudices, their errors, their idolatry, and everything that concerned their false religion; and that they should entirely separate themselves from their most intimate friends and acquaintances. It was on this ground that the Jews called converts a new birth, and converts new-born, and new person; and our Lord requires people to be born again, not only of water, but by the Holy Ghost. Look at John 3:5. All this our Lord includes in this word, Let him renounce himself. Other scriptures that support this teaching are: Matthew 10:33; John 3:3, 5, 2 Corinthians 5:17.

The third condition on which a person was admitted into the Jewish Church as a convert was, that they should submit to the yoke of the Jewish law, and bear patiently the inconveniences and sufferings with which a profession of the Mosaic religion might be accompanied. Christ requires the same condition; but, instead of the yoke of the law, he brings in his own doctrine, which he calls his yoke, Matthew 11:29: and his cross, the taking up of which not only implies a bold profession of Christ crucified, but also a cheerful submitting to all the sufferings and persecutions to which he might be exposed, and even to death itself.

The fourth condition was that they should solemnly engage to continue in the Jewish religion, faithful even unto death. This condition Christ also requires; and it is comprised in this word, Let him FOLLOW ME. Ruth is a good example of this Ruth 1:16-17.

Think about what he is saying; ‘Come unto Me . . . Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.’ These two things are not the same. ‘Coming unto Me,’ is quite plain to the most superficial observation, but it is the first step in the approach to a companionship, which companionship is afterwards perfected and kept up by obedience and imitation. The ‘coming’ is an initial act which makes a man Christ’s companion. And the ‘Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me,’ is the continuous act by which that companionship is manifested and preserved. So that in these words, which come so familiarly to most of our memories that they have almost ceased to present a sharp meaning, there is not only a merciful summons to the initial act, but a description of the continual life of which that act is the introduction.

To put that into simpler words, when Jesus Christ says ‘Come unto Me,’ He Himself has taught us what is His inmost meaning in that invitation, by another word of His: ‘He that cometh unto Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst’; where the parallelism of the clauses teaches us that to come to Christ is simply to put our trust in Him. There is in faith a true movement of the whole soul towards the Master. I think that this metaphor teaches us a great deal more about that faith that we are always talking about in the pulpit, and which, I am afraid, many churches do not very distinctly understand. To ‘come to Him’ implies, distinctly, that He, and no mere religious tradition, however precious and clear, is the Object on which faith rests.

So Christ, and not merely a doctrinal truth about Christ, should be the object of our faith, then it is very clear that faith, which grasps us, must be something more than the mere act of the understanding which assents to a truth.

Mere intellectual consent may be sufficient to fasten a man to a tradition, but there must be will and heart at work to bind a man to a person; and if it be Christ and not a religion, to which we come by our faith, then it must be with something more than our brains that we grasp Him and draw near to Him. That means your will is engaged in your confidence. Trust Him as you trust one another, only with the difference befitting a trust directed to an absolute and perfect object of trust, and not to a poor, variable human heart. Trust Him as you trust one another. Then, just as husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend, pass through all intervening hindrances and come together when they trust and love, so you come closer to Christ as the very soul of your soul by an inward real union.

The faith which saves a man’s soul is not all which is required for a Christian life. ‘Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.’ The yoke is that which, laid on the broad forehead or the thick neck of the ox, has attached to it the cords which are bound to the burden that the animal draws. The burden, then, which Christ gives to His servants to pull, is a metaphor for the specific duties which He enjoins upon them to perform; and the yoke by which they are fastened to their burdens, ‘obliged’ to their duties, is His authority, So to ‘take His yoke’ upon us is to submit our wills to His authority. Therefore this further call is addressed to all those who have come to Him, feeling their weakness and their need and their sinfulness, and have found in Him a Saviour who has made them restful and glad; and it bids them live in the deepest submission of will to Him, in joyful obedience, in constant service; and, above all, in the daily imitation of the Master.

These two commandments must come together before you get Christ’s will for His children completely expressed. There are some who think that Christianity is only a means by which you may escape the penalty of your sins; and you are ready enough, or think yourselves to be so, to listen when He says, ‘Come to Me that you may be pardoned,’ but you are not so ready to listen to what He says afterwards, when He calls upon you to take His yoke upon you, to obey Him, to serve Him, and above all to copy Him. I ask you to remember that if you separate these two commands one from another, as many people do, some of them bearing away the one half and some the other, you have got a weak Gospel; in the one case a foundation without a building, and in the other case a building without a foundation. The people who say that Christ’s call to the world is ‘Come unto Me,’ and whose Christianity and whose Gospel is only a proclamation of indulgence and pardon for past sin, have laid hold of half of the truth. The people who say that Christ’s call is ‘Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me,’ and that Christianity is a proclamation of the duty of pure living after the pattern of Jesus Christ our great Example, have laid hold of the other half of the truth. And both parties are slowly dieing, but put them together, and each has power.

That separation is one of the reasons why so many Christian are such poor Christians as they are-having so little real religion, and consequently so little real joy. You and I know of professing Christians whose whole life shows that they do not understand that Jesus Christ has a twofold summons to His servants; and that it is of no avail, to have come, or to think that you have come, to Him to get pardon, unless day by day you are keeping beside Him, doing His commandments, and copying His sweet and blessed example.

If we look at the beatitudes in Matthew 5 we find that meekness produces peace. It is proof of true greatness of soul. It comes from a heart too great to be moved by little insults. It looks upon those who offer them with pity. He that is constantly ruffled, that suffers every little insult or injury to throw him off his guard, and to raise a storm of passion within, is at the mercy of every mortal that chooses to disturb him. He is like the troubled sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.