Yoked with Jesus

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| Resting in Our Weakness series |

• Yoked with Jesus
• The Work and the Worry
• Resting in Our Salvation

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Finding Rest

“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) That’s a promise I’d like to cash in on.  But, how do we? It goes on to say, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30)  I wish I could say ‘Amen’, but when I really think about it, I’m not so sure that’s how I feel.  It doesn’t always seem easy and light. Thankfully, Jesus tells us more in this passage: “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.” (Matt 11:29) In order to find rest, we must learn from His example of gentleness and humility. In this series we’ll explore each of these virtues and see how they enable us to rest!  This week let’s explore gentleness.

Meekness?

This word ‘gentle’ comes from the root ‘praus’ in Greek which can most directly be translated as ‘meekness’.  Now ‘meek’ is not a word we use often today, but Oxford defines it as “quiet, gentle, and easily imposed on; submissive”. That’s not exactly an inspiring definition. Frankly, I don’t love the idea of being meek.  What’s more, when I see how Jesus confronted the Pharisees or drove out the money changer, it doesn’t seem all that meek.  So, how did Jesus demonstrate meekness? Was He really submissive? Perhaps He was. He was submissive to the Father’s will, “I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (John 5:30) The Father ‘easily imposed on’ Him. In fact, Jesus said that He only did what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). He even said that the Father told Him what to talk about and how to answer people (John 12:49).  I don’t know if you’ve ever imagined what that looks like, but just think about how reliant Jesus would be for the Father’s direction at every turn! In this way, He was the model of meekness.

To illustrate this further, let’s consider another character whom the Bible describes as the meekest man on the earth – Moses.  The Israelites were just beginning their journey in the wilderness.  God could have given them a map and left it to them to find their way.  Instead, Moses asked God to go with them.  Allow me to summarize what Moses said in Exodus 33, “You’ve told me to bring these people to the Promise Land, but I don’t want to go alone. If you won’t go with us, then please don’t make us go.”  Consistent with his request, God led them each day by His presence. The book of Numbers describes this process, “Whether it was two day, or a month, or a longer time, that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out, but when it lifted they set out. At the command of the Lord they camped, and at the command of the Lord they set out.” (Numbers 9:22-23) Just as with Jesus, we can see how reliant the Israelites were for God’s direction at every turn. As a result, they were consistently in the presence of God. But what does this have to do with rest? Consider God’s answer to Moses’ request in Exodus 33, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:14) There it is again, just like Jesus said in Matthew! He is the source of our rest and it is in His presence that we can be refreshed (see our series Make Room to Be Refreshed).

His Yoke

So, how does meekness allow us to rest? Do you recall how Jesus instructed us to take His yoke? Now, a yoke was a wooden harness that you place on a pair of animals so that they can pull together.  It unites the two animals to ‘move together as one’.  In the stories of Jesus and Moses, we see a pattern that demonstrates meekness for us. They did not rely on their own planning or initiative to know what to do.  They were both submissive to the Father’s will to the point that they moved in unison with Him. They were yoked with God, and His yoke is easy. Meekness enables us to receive His yoke and move together with Him as one.

I’m a pretty good counterexample to this. When God calls me to something, I have a bad habit of getting ahead of Him.  In our post on Hearing God, we talked about how it can be difficult to hear God’s will and what we can do to hear Him more.  What I didn’t mention is that in the absence of His direction I often start making my own plans.  Sometimes I wish He would just spell it all out for me at the start.  This way I could get where I’m going without slowing down to ask for His direction every step of the way.  But therein lies the problem, I wouldn’t need to interact with Him at every step.  The weight would be on me to accomplish His will, and I would be alone as I tried to do it.

When He invites us to take His yoke, He is offering not only to lead us but to go with us. We long to do His will, but it’s easy to forget that His will, His desire, is first and foremost to be with us.  To find rest for our souls, we must accept our inability to find our own way. Instead, let’s seek His presence because His presence is our direction.

Next Week

Along the way though, God will ask us to do what we see Him doing and say what we hear Him saying. How can we rest while we are hard at work doing His will? In the next post of our series we’ll see how Christ’s example of ‘humility’ answers this question for us.  Before that though, I’d like to take a break from this series next week to do a special post for Mother’s Day. Subscribe and follow us so you don’t miss a post!