Welcome to Affirm foundation, presented by Princeton Ministries with Dr. Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.
Well, what kind of week have you had? I have visited with a number of you throughout the week and been talking and know that for some, this was a week that the boss just expected too much and it was awful hard to deliver. For others, this is the week that the car just wouldn’t turn over. For still others, this was the week that the bills didn’t quite get paid because there wasn’t just enough to cover the needs. It seems that there aren’t enough hours.
In the day for the number of tasks that each of us has before us to accomplish. And it’s in that context that we hear the soothing words of Me as he says to us, Come to me all you who labor and are heavy. Laden, and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in spirit, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Me, it seems, continually saw the people as toiling under some great weight, that they were always loaded down with some intolerable burden in compassion. As me looks upon his followers, it’s in that context that he says to.
Them, Come to me all of you who labor, all of You who have a burden, Me says, Come to Me. The yoke that you are bearing is too heavy. The burden that you have is too great. And it is unwise for you to determine that by your own strength that you can take on all of the weight and all of the responsibility and all of the burden that is upon you.
And me says, Come to me do you remember in Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian had left the city of destruction, knowing that city was going to be destroyed. His wife follows for a brief time, but decides that she will not continue the journey. And so she returns to the city of destruction. And as Christian makes his way to the Celestial city, he meets a number of characters. He meets Mr. Worldly, who introduces Me to Vanity Fair, where everyone is concerned about their earthly goods and what they have and what they own and what they can polish and what they can clean. He meets Mr. Pliable, who is unable to go with me the next step, because at the next step there is another person with another opinion. And Mr. Pliable, uncertain of his own opinion, listens.
And does not continue to the Celestial city but throughout all of his journeys, Christian is aware that upon his back there is strapped in his knapsack a weight that is so great. And as he meets Mr. Pliable and Mr. Worldly, he continually makes reference to this weight that is burdening me, that is so heavy that he is unable even to take the next step. And it is not until Christian lifts.
His eyes to the hill of Calvary, and there he sees me and in that moment, as he looks to me crucified on the cross, he realizes that for his burden, for his. Weight of sin, me has died and as he kneels in humble repentance. Before me, as he stands, that burden is still snapped from his back. And for the first time in his life, he’s able to stand erect without the weight of the day, without the consequence of the burden of his sin. As that knapsack rolls down the hill out of sight, me says, Come to Me, all you who labor and are.
Heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Our text tells us first that we must come to me Come to Me whether you have lived a relatively moral life but still have not come to me. Then to you he says, Come to me whether your life has been a life that has been immoral by the standards of your family, by the standards of our culture, and you have yet to come to me. Then he says to you, Come to me whether you have done your best to keep the commandments and to be faithful in church responsibilities, but you have not yet Come to me. He says to you, Come to me or whether you have neglected the church.
You have neglected God’s word, you have neglected prayer he still says to you, Come to me. And as me looked over the city of Jerusalem, he wept. Why? Because they would not come and he declares that I am like a mother hen whose arms are outstretched, who wants to welcome you, but you will not come. And me wept me continually makes the offer, come to me whether you are John Wesley, who had gone to convert the Indians in.
Georgia, but returns from that failure and says, I went to Georgia to convert the Indians. But, oh, God, who will convert me and on a ship, as he listens to a group of Moravians, hears the gospel of me, and Wesley comes to me.
Or whether you are a young man like Charles Spurgeon, who, one winter’s night, walking the streets of London, headed towards the church where he normally worshiped. But upon that night, the storms were so great that he was ushered into a small chapel. He says there were no more than 12 people present. There was such a great storm that the pastor wasn’t even preaching that night. He wasn’t there. And so an elder or a Deacon, or perhaps it was a layman, he’s not sure, stood up and preached and said, look to me.
And in a crowd of less than 12 people, that layman pointed his finger at Spurgeon, and he said, young man, are miserable and you will continue to be miserable until you come to me. That is where it begins. Come to me, said me. If we would know anything about God the Father, we must first Come through the Son, Me, and let the. Words of Me himself, like the lightning at Sinai, be heard. As me said, you must be born again. That was his way of saying, Come.
Unto me, begin anew with Me. Spurgeon, who later went on to become one of the great ministers of London, said, God will not be served by men whose sins have not been washed away by the precious blood of his dear Son. Well, where do we begin? We begin by coming to me.
He tells us that as we come to me, that he will give us rest now, is that the kind of rest that finds us on a Club Med vacation under a swinging palm? No, it is a different type of rest. It is a rest in the midst Of the hub of this world.
It is a rest that is surrounded by the furor of this world. And yet you are able, through me, to be at rest. There were two painters who tried to capture on canvas this verse. And their assignment was to paint a picture of rest. And so the first painted a beautiful setting of a young boy on a quiet, still lake as he was quietly taking a nap. And everything was still. The wind was quiet, and it was a beautiful, soft summer afternoon. And that was his picture of rest. The second painter had a different canvas. On it was to be found a raging, thunderous waterfall with winds that were whipping the spray up as the water beat upon boulders at its base. And there, overlooking this tremendous cataract of water was a small birch tree. And on that birch tree was a branch and at the end of the branch was a fork and in that fork was found a nest and in that nest, a robin who was sitting over her brood of young babes. And that was his picture of rest. That is the picture of Christian rest while the world is hurling and swirling and splashing and thundering and roaring.
The Christian goes from day to day in a state of rest. Why? Because me has promised to give us his rest as we would Come to Me. Me said, peace, I leave you.
My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. And so our text tells us that we are to come to me and that he will give us rest. But there is also more that our text tells us. He says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your soul.
My yoke is easy, my burden is light when we first come to me, it seems very uncomfortable and strange to begin to follow some of the practices that me instructs us are part of the Christian life.
But in this text we are told, Come to Me, I will give you rest, and then you will learn from Me. Our instructor is me himself. Me, who will teach us all that we need to learn through his Word,.
I remember in pilot training the first afternoon that they brought us out to the flight line and they introduced us to our instructor and I still remember Captain Carter, who had his flight suit on patches from Various campaigns as an Air Force pilot I remember a particular scarf that he wore that was red. But, you know, I also remember how. He picked up his parachute.
And as we would go out to the plane every day, I’m left handed, but he was right handed. And he picked up his parachute with his right hand. And do you know that they found.
Among pilots that they by over 97% Pick up their parachute with the same hand that their instructor picked up his parachute? Why is that? It’s because the first time that I ever flew in a jet aircraft, it was a strange world.
I had been in light aircraft, but I had never been to feel the.
Thrust and the power of a jet aircraft and to know that this man knew how to fly this plane. And do you think that as a young student, my eyes were not captivated.
By every small action of Captain Carter? I watched the way he did preflight. I watched the way he taxied his.
Aircraft down the Runway.
I watched as he would work his throttles and check his instruments before that moment when the brakes would be released and we would run at 10, 20, 40, 90, 120 miles an hour down the Runway. And then as he would gently pull that stick and we would be airborne. And I remember the sensation, the first time that occurred. And were climbing above the clouds and for the first time looking down in an aircraft upon clouds, that I, in some strange way, was going to be responsible someday for flying that plane. I guarantee I watched every one of.
The smallest actions of Captain Carter Why? Because there came another day when Captain Carter stayed back with all of the other pilots. And that was the day when he said to me, you’ll solo today. You’ll do it without me in the seat. And on that day, every small detail that I had learned from Me, I followed. And it was those habits that built up as we continued to fly. Me says, Come to Me. I will give you rest, but you must learn from Me that it is Me who is our instructor. The great truths of his life become the great truths of our life. And even the subtle truths of. Of his life become, as we grow and mature in me, the subtle actions.
Of our own life when we come to me, we are to see the old burdens of this world fall away. And he promises that he will put in their place a new burden.
There is new work for us to do but what is different about the yoke of me and its burden is that it is lighter and easier than the.
Yoke that you have carried from this world. Perhaps you have on your back a yoke, a burden of greed or a burden of selfishness or a great weight of drunkenness or adultery.
The one thing I know for certain is that weight is far greater than any weight you will ever carry through Me. And that the burden of those sins are far greater when we exchange that. Burden for the burden that Me gives us.
For he tells us that his yoke is light His burden is easy. Cardinal Wolsey was the minister, the priest of Henry viii. Unlike others in the court, Wolsey was able to survive from one reign to the next. Why?
Because he learned what it was that the state needed from Me as a religious representative. And so from the beginning, Cardinal Wolsey decided that he would serve his king more than he would serve God. In the end, Wolsey became a man who made and broke kings. He had amassed such a great wealth that he had over 800 servants at his personal command. He had some 10 lords, some 15 knights and some 45 squires who all acted at his word.
As an old man, he realized that.
He had never committed himself to Me. He had never followed the burden that Me wanted to put on Me.
And he said, had I served my.
God with half the zeal that I served the king, I would not in my old age be left naked before my enemies.
But this is the just reward that i must receive for my incessant pains in study, not regarding my service to.
To God, but only to my prince. He was left abandoned. The yoke of this world is a far greater burden to bear than the yoke that Me wants you to bear for Me. We are told by Me, my yoke is easy, My burden is light. His yoke easy. His burden is light. And if anything marks our culture, it seems to be people who are under tremendous stress.
People who have taken as their goal whether it is riches or fame, success and in that world we feel some degree of burden. That our time isn’t enough, that our talents aren’t enough, that we’re not able to produce enough. But notice that me says, my yoke.
Is easy, my burden is light if you are suffering under a burden to be successful, if you are suffering under a yoke to have great riches, then know this, that is not the yoke of Me. That is not the burden that me has promised rest from. That is a yoke that you have fashioned by your own hands and that you are feeling the weight of that burden. For me said, my yoke is light the burden that I give to you, it’s easy easy to bear. Meaning that what me wants from his people are not great successes in the eyes of the world, but great successes in his eyes.
Those who will be low and meek in spirit that is the yoke of me that the world would say to you, don’t.
Be a fool, don’t be humble, get all of the credit that you can get and me says, no, I came to be a servant, not a master. And the ways of me are so different than the ways of this world. If we would determine that we would do the things that me wants us.
To do, that whatever decision we make Is for me, his glory If our feet would seek nothing more than to step in the footprints of me to that type of life me says, my yoke is light, that burden is easy. But the self-fashioned yoke of 20th.
Century man for success and fame and fortune is not a yoke that is constructed by me. And under that yoke your neck will become increasingly stiff and your heart will grow increasingly cold to the things of me that as Christians we would want nothing less than to be able to say, not my will, but thine will be done. Me said, Come to Me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest my yoke is light, my burden is easy.
Let us pray. Our God and our Father we pray for the yoke of me about our necks. And Father, that as we would know that you are upon us, that the weight, the burden isn’t heavy. It’s easy, it’s light. That the world would try to persuade us that to follow me and his ways is the way of failure. But Father, the way of sin is the way of death. Help us to take the burden of me his yoke, and to learn about Me as we Come to Me day by day. For we ask it, in me name. Amen.
Thank you for listening to Affirm foundation, presented by Princeton Ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website and princetonministries.org or send your donation to Princeton Ministries, Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543. That’s Princeton Ministries, Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, NJ 08543. The Lord bless you, and Dr. Smith looks forward to hearing from you.