Heavenly Father, thank you again that we can open up your word and we can learn of you, about you, from you.
Lord, I would pray that your Holy Spirit again be present.
Fill me as I present your word so that it might be proper, appropriate, and lead the thoughts towards you.
This we pray in your name, Amen.
Various branches of the military have their slogans for recruiting.
I don't watch cable anymore. I had to look up what the most recent slogans were, for example, the United States Army.
But I remember as a child seeing the advertisements, the helicopters piloting in and people repelling from ropes,
jumping over the obstacle courses, swimming through mud, or maybe it was a Navy SEAL popping up out of the ocean.
They got the masks on and the air tank and they do what military people do, and they're recruiting ads.
Well, so I thought, well, I remember the slogan when I was a child, but what other slogans were there for the United States Army?
This was one during World War I.
You can if you can picture Uncle Sam pointing the finger and saying, I want you for US Army.
Maybe we've seen those posters.
Then you get into the fifties to the seventies, and the slogan was this choice, not chance and modern Army green.
In other words, when you joined the Army, you had a choice of job training, travel, the branch that you could work in.
You could choose your specialty.
You had a choice to participate.
It wasn't happen chance that you were there.
So they were encouraging that.
Then you get into the seventies, the decade of seventy one to eighty, and it was today's Army wants you.
So the clearly they are driving the point home.
You are who we want to participate in this.
Come be a part of something more or bigger or challenging or fulfilling or patriotic, whatever the case is.
But we want you to be a part of it.
Not that guy. You.
That was the messaging.
We want you.
Then and this is the one that I really remember this from nineteen eighty to two thousand and one.
This was the longest stretch for a US Army slogan.
Be all you can be.
We know that one.
We've seen that one.
Maybe you just right here.
You're like, oh, sitting on my couch and I was watching this.
And next thing you know, they go to a commercial break and it's be all you can be in the Army.
Right.
Be all you can be.
I remember that the most recent ones, I guess presently I didn't I had no idea this was their slogan right now.
Presently, it's warriors wanted.
Warriors wanted, they wanted to I guess they're they're putting forth a strong front.
We want warriors that can be you.
Prior to that, it was Army strong.
I've seen that one.
I've seen that on stickers.
I saw that in posters and and you know, I would get recruiting things.
Hey, I'm like, I'm a little too old for that.
But Army strong.
The one, though, that we're going to talk a little bit about, do we remember one that I haven't mentioned?
Army of one.
You remember that one Army of one.
It did not last long.
If you saw it, you were privileged to see that slogan from somewhere between 2001 to 2006.
Very short Army of one.
Maybe not a bad principle if you're thinking of a recruiting mindset because it was we are going to develop you into the best single soldier you can be.
Good news is everybody is going to be a good single soldier.
Therefore, the Army is going to be full of good single soldiers.
It was hyper individualistic.
You're going to be a fantastic woman or a man that participating in the U.S.
military.
You're going to be able to do everything.
Climb the walls and swim under the barbed wires and defend the territories and fight for liberty.
You have the strength and we will develop it even further.
An Army of one.
But you notice that it was fairly short lived 2001 to 2006.
Some of the other ones went for two decades, 10 years, three decades almost for the be all you can be.
The current one has already are the next one after that Army strong went from 06 to 2018.
Why was it that that only lasted for roughly five years?
Because while maybe they wanted to get the idea across that if everybody was a good strong individual unit, then collectively they would be a good
strong unit.
Well, that messaging fell flat and the Army realized that it missed out on the teamwork element of what participating in the military
involves.
No soldier left behind doesn't come through in an Army of one.
Right?
If I've got what it takes and I can get out, that's good.
What about them?
I have not served in the military.
My oldest brother did.
He served in the Army and then my grandfathers both served during World War Two.
Perhaps I've got other family members that I just am unaware of.
My father in law almost served in World War Two.
He had he had his draft papers.
He had gone to the office.
He had his equipment and World War Two ended.
So he he was that close to being in the Pacific arena.
But missing out on the teamwork was obvious for those five years.
And so they shifted course.
You know, many people get too caught up in it.
I would even narrow this down and bring it right close to home.
The United States and most Western cultures are guilty of hyper individualism.
You got this.
It's you don't share with others.
That's a sign of weakness.
I can handle it.
We don't need and you can even see this in the breakdown of the community as the generations have gone by.
But many people just take this individualism to an unhealthy level.
And I would say that it's time to shift our slogan on this.
I would say that as Christians, as Adventists, we need to, yes, understand that there is an individual component, but that's not the be all and end all.
There is a teamwork portion to our discipleship walk.
Teamwork is necessary.
Teamwork is important.
And for far too many people that are missing out on the teamwork element, they're struggling.
And we can't overemphasize the struggles that people are going through in our community inside of our own churches.
There are many different ways that we can see this.
We can imagine people that are struggling with with.
Jobs.
But they go, I'm just going to double down and and lift myself up by my bootstraps and I'm just going to get through it when you could be reaching out and someone could help you.
You could be you could be prayed for.
Someone might know of a job opening somewhere else that is a better fit.
Maybe you're struggling in your relationships, whether you're dating or friends or a marriage and you just I'm all alone and no one knows what I'm going through or no one cares to hear what I have to say.
So we just muddle along.
One step in front of the other, except that we find maybe we aren't progressing very far forward.
Maybe you've got baggage in your life.
I have yet to meet a person without baggage.
Some people's suitcases are just a little bit bigger.
Most people, if you live long at all in any time period, you're going to collect baggage.
You're going to collect a little bit of dirt under your shoes.
It's it's tough sometimes.
Some of that baggage, rightfully so.
We don't broadcast it as a side note.
I actually think that's one of the worst things that's happened since the invention of social media airing out skeletons online for a bunch of strangers to see has become the norm.
I think that's an unhealthy approach, but that's not to say that the other extreme is the healthy approach.
If you've got some baggage, I would encourage you to find someone you can trust.
Share and get encouragement and find people who will love you in spite of your baggage.
You can work through and develop this.
In other words, what I'm trying to say is that everyone has a yoke that they are carrying.
Everyone has a yoke on their shoulders around their neck that they have.
Everyone does.
Everyone is trying to pull a load or carry a burden. They're trying to do labor and do work with an implement for work alone.
By themselves.
Now, I might say that if you were a Clydesdale, you could do it.
Those are large horses, big, gorgeous.
Maybe you could do a lot of that.
We are not that.
We are sinful, frail humans.
I praise God that in His Word, He remembers that we are dust.
He knows that like the blades of a grass, we pop up and we die to Him like a season.
When you've lived for eternity and you look at the lifespan of 80 years, what is 80 years?
I'm grateful for that.
He remembers that we have those shortcomings in our short time span.
But He also knows that we all have our own plow that we're pulling behind us, our own sled labored down.
So when we turn to Matthew 11, and thank you Janet for reading it so wonderfully.
I was very, very pleased when she volunteered.
She said, I want to do it like we can do that.
That was great.
When we get to Matthew 11, what we find in our verses and to lead up to that, what we have is some challenges to Jesus' Messiahship.
We have first John the Baptist's disciples coming up and bringing this question, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?
That's doubt.
That's a challenge.
It's not going the way we were expecting it.
Are you Him?
Then you get down to the unrepentant cities where Jesus denounces cities where His works had been done, but they had turned Him away.
They had denied Him.
I mean, I can imagine the frustration and many of us may even know this firsthand where you put in the effort, you put in the work,
you self-sacrifice, and then people close the door in your face, if it will.
And so Jesus pronounces a woe on those cities.
It will be more tolerable for the ones that faced judgment in Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for those who turned away the Messiah in person.
But then we get to this in verse 25, at that time Jesus declared, and it is believed that this was a public prayer.
It is believed that this is another evidence of Jesus praying where people could hear Him.
I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.
Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
He is praising God that one, there are wise, humble people who recognize Him as the Messiah that He is, and they receive Him as such.
And then two, He is also thanking His Father that the gospel, that the gospel to those who believe themselves self-righteous is undiscoverable.
And that might be a real warning for us today if you have not approached the gospel or Jesus or the Word of God with a sense of humility seeking Him.
And you just approach it as a tool or you know you have the answers.
This message is for you, that humility is necessary to find Jesus.
Otherwise, you will keep getting in your own way.
In verse 27, He continues, All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.
One of the primary roles of the Messiah was to reveal God to humanity.
From Eden until Christ's time, roughly 4,000 years had passed, and men and women, mankind has done a great job at misrepresenting our Heavenly Father.
Gross perversions that we have then credited to God are all across humanity's history.
From sacrificing children to the gods, to claiming terrible natural disasters as acts of God, we misrepresent the God who embodies love.
The God who describes His character as patient and kind and long-suffering, merciful, gracious, not only to you, but to generations after you.
We misrepresent that.
I have heard stories, I have heard girls and boys say, how can I trust my Heavenly Father when my earthly father has hurt me so profoundly?
How can we harmonize those?
Jesus is saying that one of His primary purposes was to reveal the genuine and true character of our Heavenly Father.
That was a job of His, if you will, and it was paramount.
He says elsewhere in John, at the request to show us the Father, and He goes, haven't I been so long with you?
You have to make that request of Me. If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.
When you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what do you see of Jesus?
Love.
The willingness to be quiet when others might be condemnatory.
An interest in serving, getting down in the dirt and the mud and touching the sick, not withholding a loving touch.
You see someone who, in the midst, when he could hurl back condemnation and judgment, and he had a right to do so,
rather he knelt and he just wrote in the dust and let the men who read it judge themselves.
I mean, that's a beautiful example of grace and patience and remembering the frailty of mankind.
If you want to see the Father, you look to Jesus.
As Messiah, Jesus repeatedly defined that as one of His main purposes.
Throughout the centuries and the millennia of history, mankind has consistently misrepresented God.
Other examples maybe we're familiar with is you have the angry God of the Old Testament versus the gracious Jesus of the New Testament.
Have we heard of that?
Or that Jesus needed to appease the wrath of God.
That Jesus continues to go into the heavenly courts.
No, no, no, Father, hold on a moment.
I know you're angry, but let's calm down.
Maybe we can hold our breath and count to ten.
I don't know.
Or we say this, that Jesus needed to convince the Father that mankind was worthy of love and salvation.
I've heard that argument.
There are still some denominations that teach that.
And then there are some that teach that other saints in heaven go to Jesus and say, please listen to me.
They're worth it.
Now take it to the Father.
You have this chain of of of intermediaries just because the Father is so angry and mad and wrathful at mankind.
You need all of these points of separation, people pleading that he not just wipe us out.
That's baked into some doctrines.
But rather rather than those misrepresentations early in Jesus ministry, he stated that God loves the world so much that he sent the sun.
He didn't have to be convinced of it.
He already knew it elsewhere.
He also swear Jesus declared himself to be the demonstrator and the revealer of our father of God.
But what does that mean for our yoke?
Well, because when Jesus declares himself as the revealer of God, immediately on the back end of it is an invitation to come to him.
I have revealed to you the character of God.
Now come to me.
There's a delay in this.
We saw that.
No one knows the father except the son, anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.
And then immediately, verse twenty eight of Matthew eleven, come to me.
All who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
These two things are never separated in the gospel.
The revelation of Jesus, the revealing of God, the father and the invitation to join them.
They are never separated.
They go hand in hand.
Jesus never makes himself known to the hungering and the thirsty soul without also offering his righteousness as sustenance.
It's never.
I see that you have this need.
Well, go forth and get it.
I see that you have this need rather.
Come to me and I can provide it.
Always together, always joined.
I heard in Jesus is saying you've struggled all this time trying to to work a job that is a challenge to overcome a temptation.
Maybe you recognize you're trying to fight off an unseen or unknown enemy out there.
You might not have yet learned the words to put to it, but you know something is beyond this mortal coil.
If you will.
Something extra and unknown darkness is pressing in on you, even if you can't describe it.
Jesus says, I know that you've been seeking and trying to discover meaning or purpose in your life.
But when he says all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, he.
He is denouncing that hyper individualism where we hold on to our own yoke and do it ourselves and keep on plowing forward, even though we can't move the instrument.
Because he's saying, I'll give you rest.
You're going to get tired doing it all alone.
It's going to wear you out.
You will either have burnout.
You will give up.
You will say, why fight any longer?
I might as well do what I want or give into the temptation.
I can't resist it.
No one's helping me.
And I'm exhausted.
Have you ever been exhausted in your spiritual walk?
Ever been tired?
Ever just wondered how much longer do I have to keep doing this before I feel that that promise sense of victory?
Maybe it'll ease up in a moment and and the uphill won't continue to be an uphill.
You know, there's one trick when you go when you go hiking with kids.
Or really anyone else who complains when you when you walk.
If you're hiking in the woods and you start to hear the questions, how much longer?
Here's the trick.
Only one more mile.
Every time that question is asked, only one more mile.
My dad shaking his head because I did that trick with him on a trip.
We thought it was a 10 minute walk and it was like an hour or almost there right around the next curve.
How much longer on the uphill?
Just an extra hundred yards.
We're almost there.
You can see the sky.
Look around you.
We think that will be the case in our Christian walk in just sometimes our daily lives.
We think that it just one more mile and then it'll happen that piece that everyone says I'm going to have will be there.
The mountaintop experience.
I'm going to achieve it.
One of these days.
Have you ever been disappointed that it didn't come or in your timing or when you thought it would happen or.
And then you just go.
Boy, I'm tired.
I've been that way.
I felt that way.
Clergy in all denominations, certainly through what clergy faced with our recent pandemic and then on the back end of it.
Pastoral burnout and then drop out was measurable across denominations.
It's very real.
So if you're going through it, know that you're not alone.
You haven't been the first.
You won't be the last.
And Jesus recognizes it because he can't.
In offering the rest, he recognizes in us the need for the rest.
And I am grateful for that.
He knows you.
He knows you personally.
He knows what trips you up and he knows what tires you out.
And he's willing and wanting to give that rest that you and I desperately need.
If we go on from there, our next verse take.
And this is how we get the rest.
Because Jesus then says, Take my yoke upon you.
Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
We know what a yoke is.
Maybe we've heard sermons before on this passage.
It's the implement that joins together a pair or more of animals for often farm, but it doesn't have to be farm, but labor, work, right?
You can picture two bulls or oxen or donkeys or Clydesdales.
If you can picture a pair of them or four of them lined up, they're yoked together.
Well, why do you yoke together two animals instead of letting one have at it?
Stronger makes the work easier.
It allows two animals to do an exponentially more work longer.
And the two animals will be less tired at the end of it because you have shared work between the two of them.
They can pull a heavier implement.
They can plow a field longer and later.
They'll probably still be hungry at the end of it, but they get more work done.
And Jesus is saying it's time to trade in your yoke for mine.
Because remember, we all have a yoke.
How many of us have had more than one car?
I've had more than one car.
We've owned more than one car.
Maybe there's debates about when the best time is to trade in the car, that mysterious 100,000 miles.
Oh, I can't go at 101,000.
I'll lose so much value.
Maybe that's when you trade it in.
Maybe you don't have the luxury of trading it in just because a mileage is coming up.
And you go, I'll trade it in when it dies, when it breaks.
I am awfully proud of the fact that I broke two engines in a little Ford Ranger because it was a four cylinder and I worked it like a six.
I worked it hard, broke one engine, replaced that one.
And I could tell I had that sense about to break this one.
It's kind of starting to clank in ways that I've heard before, starting to kind of peter out a little bit when I'm pulling mulch in ways I have heard before.
Time to unload before I don't want to pay another for another engine.
It's time to get a bigger truck.
Well, Jesus is saying that about your yoke.
You are taking a yoke and you're piling on your burdens and you're trying to go it alone and you're trying to accomplish what he has called you to do and try to be a disciple and try to all the good things.
Sometimes it is good things.
But if you're trying to take your little four cylinder and work it like a six or an eight, you're going to break.
You're going to clank and you're going to clatter and you're going to you're going to peter out and you won't be able to move it.
And maybe you'll break down on the side of the road.
Been there.
It's no fun.
I recommend not doing it.
And Jesus is saying it's time for you to trade in your yoke for mine.
And when you take on my yoke.
Good news.
You're not alone.
Good news.
You are now partnered up with me, your savior.
Good news.
When you trade in your yoke.
Now you have my yoke and I am the creator, the redeemer, the sustainer, the king of kings yoked up with you, not just walking beside you with the whip cracking it.
We are a pair moving forward.
We are joined.
We are connected.
When you work, I'm working and when I'm working, you're working.
It is the perfect partnership.
And praise God when we are when we are linked up with the creator of the universe, name something that can't be done.
We will look at we will look at an evangelism meeting or we will look at a cooking school or we will look at teaching our youth or a one on one Bible study and we will say I can't do it.
You're right.
You can't.
But you and Jesus can.
You and Jesus can trade in your yoke for Christ's.
Learn of him because he wants to reveal himself to you.
Model yourself after his character that's gentle and lonely and hard.
He's in other words, he's saying I'm not a big hardened bull that's just going to drag you behind me trying to play catch up.
We're in this together, Jesus says.
You will find rest for your souls.
It's tough to wrap our minds around finding rest while we're plowing.
It's tough to wrap our minds around when we take on the yoke of Christ.
That's not permission to stop.
It means you get to work and be rested while you're working.
How do we harmonize that?
Well, anybody that has tried to go through a tough time in their life all alone, but then they have found a partner in it.
A person they can trust, a person they can confide in, a person that will pray with them, maybe lend a little bit of financial help if that's necessary, maybe provide other resources if that's necessary.
It's true.
It doesn't all of a sudden end the tough time.
But ask someone who has not gone through it alone and they will tell you it's easier.
If you're not alone, even while you go through it.
It's easier.
Jesus is saying this walk is not going to be easy.
Don't fool yourself.
It's still labor.
But when you're laboring with me, it's easier.
It's restful.
You can have the strength that I'm willing to give you.
And I want to give you because then he says my yoke is easy.
My burden is light.
You're not going to be all alone trying to pull your sled by yourself.
In November, we are going to we're going to have a weekend emphasis on the intersection of mental health and spirituality.
With some scary numbers when it comes to mental health, depression, anxiety, the number of people that don't get help, don't seek help, aren't offered help, that kind of thing.
We recognize that that also through a little bit of research in our immediate community, stress and anxiety about the present and the future is one of the top 15 concerns for the Ringgold community.
So this church leadership saw that and said, let's let's do something.
Let's offer the yoke of Jesus.
Let's offer a community in the Ringgold Seventh-day Adventist Church where people can come and not no longer be alone.
Let's offer something that we know is a need because we would like to turn the trend.
We would like to see people getting help.
We would we want we care for.
We love people whom we haven't even met yet and we want to invite them here and lead them to Jesus.
Let them trade in their yolks for Jesus yolks.
We're doing that in November.
You saw the dates in your in your bulletin circle.
Then please be here.
I think it will be very good.
I'm excited about it.
If you're wanting to wonder how we can experience this light burden and the easy yoke of Jesus three suggestions.
One moving forward and in the same direction as Jesus.
Yokes for animals don't work if one wants to go to the right and the other one wants to go to the left.
It just doesn't work.
If you through reading him reading through the Gospels reading from Genesis to Revelation.
If you are coming across his revealed will his revealed character and the Holy Spirit says you're out of step with Jesus.
Prayerfully ask that the Holy Spirit get you back into step with Jesus.
You have to be moving in the same direction as him.
Otherwise you're fighting against him and there's no rest in that.
Move forward and in the same direction as Jesus meaning that you have to look for the direction Jesus is going.
Put the effort in to don't struggle to carry the weight yourself.
Jesus says I will help you take him up on the offer.
If all of a sudden you just go I'm going to take that.
I take all the suitcases back.
Jesus doesn't force it.
He will let you have whatever burdens you want.
If you hang on to them yourself your yoke will forever be heavy.
And then finally be refreshed in Jesus.
There is still more work to do but you can find rest in him.
The more you read about Jesus the more you pray to your Savior.
The more you desire to look at others the way that he looks at others and at you.
The more you pray that his character be your character.
That you extend grace like he does.
That you forgive others as he's forgiven you.
The more you put these things into practice you will be refreshed because then you will be living a life in Jesus.
Modeled after Jesus.
He will be not just there but it will be a part of you.
A part of your life.
A part of your experience.
The abiding that Jesus talks about is like a family member that you want to move in.
Actually moving in and making a home with you.
They've hung up the curtains.
They've put down a little area rug.
They've helped you make dinner.
They've helped you clean the bathrooms.
They are a part of your home.
They contribute to it.
They live with you.
That's the picture when Jesus says I abide in you and you in me.
We're making a home together.
And that can be refreshing.
That can be restful.
Jesus can provide that.
I would encourage you that as we are looking forward to the upcoming seminar.
And again I told you this was a soft introduction.
Our upcoming seminar.
If you or someone you know could benefit from it.
Please attend.
Invite and attend.
We will be talking about some practical things.
We will be looking at how the Bible can help us with that.
We will even look at how Christians have gotten it wrong.
And how can we do a little better.
We're going to take a whole bunch of options and points to it.
Where I pray that God will bring us to a healthy and healthier understanding.
Until then trade in your yoke for Jesus.
Stop carrying your burdens by yourself.
Link up with Him.
You will get more accomplished.
You will find rest in the middle of it.
And it will allow you to keep moving forward from now all the way until Jesus comes back.
Trade in your yoke for Jesus.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father thank you for your word.
We thank you that in you we can find rest.
We thank you that while there is no guarantee that tough times will completely disappear.
That challenges will completely fall away.
That hurdles will no longer need to be crossed.
Or we are grateful that you have promised that we don't have to do it alone.
You will lift us.
You will carry us.
You will strengthen us.
You will raise us up with your right hand.
We praise your name for that.
Lord today I pray that that not just be pleasing and pleasant words.
But it be a reality in all of our lives.
I pray that what we face whether personal emotional spiritual physical.
Lord I pray that you would yoke up with us.
Lord bless us with your presence bless us with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Bless us with your partnership in our lives.
Lord I thank you so much for loving us.
We pray all these things in Jesus name.
Amen.