Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2832
“My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:30.
OBSERVE dear Friends, that our Lord Jesus Christ does lay a yoke and a burden upon His followers. He uses those words that none may presume to enter His service without due consideration. Religion is not a matter for trifling. The service of the meek and lowly Christ is no child’s play. There is a yoke that is to be borne by all His disciples and the neck of self-will must be bent low to receive it. There is a burden to be carried for Christ—and all the strength that God gives us must be used for His honor and Glory.
But, lest those words, “yoke,” and, “burden,” should sound harsh to our ears and any of us should start back because we have had our shoulders galled by another yoke and our backs bent beneath a very different burden, the Master very graciously and sweetly says, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” It appears to me that He spoke thus so that none may despair—that despair may not even come near us and that we may not despond as to the possibility of our salvation. Christ has a yoke for us to wear, so let us seriously wear it. But it is an easy yoke, so let us wear it hopefully. He has a burden for us to carry for Him, so let us be in earnest in bearing it—but it is a light burden, so let us be full ofjoy at the very prospect of carrying it. Our Savior’s adjectives are always emphatic and they are especially so here. His “yoke is easy”—easy in the fullest sense, and His “burden is light”—light in the most joyous meaning of the term! You may always be sure that in Christ’s words there is never less than He seems to say and, more than that, you can scarcely ever be wrong in believing that every statement made by Him contains far more than appears on the surface of it.
I want you to feel, at this time, that whatever yoke and burden there may be connected with Christ, that yoke is easy and that burden is light. I hope you will not pervert this text as some people do. They misquote it by saying that “the yoke of Christianityis easy and the burden of Christianityis light.” I am not greatly concerned about the yoke or burden of Christianity—to me, the charm of our text is that, here, we have Christ Himself saying to us, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” I want you to have before you not some impalpable, visionary, imaginary thing, but the very Lord that bought us with His precious blood speaking with those lips which are as lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh and, pointing with His pierced hand to the yoke and to the burden which He calls especially His own and saying, as He said when He was here upon the earth, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Coming, then, to our text, I ask you to notice, first, that the context explains it Secondly, a little word of distinction in the text clears it And, thirdly, the experience of all who know the Lord proves it to be true.
I. First, then, THE CONNECTION OF OUR TEXT EXPLAINS IT.
Our Savior did not speak these two sentences by themselves and, therefore, we may not take this verse by itself. It is true, but you may make it untrue to yourself unless you take it in its proper connection. How often shall we have to tell people that the Bible is not a mere collection of separate sentences which they may tear from their context just as they please? We are not to treat the verses of the Bible as pigeons might treat a bushel of peas—picking out one here and another there, without any thought of the surroundings of that particular passage! No, this blessed Book was written for men to read right through—and if they are to understand the meaning of it, they must read each sentence in the connection in which it is found.
So, keeping this Truth in view, I begin by saying that some of you would not find Christ’s yoke easy or His burden light. That is the very last thing you would find them to be to you in your present condition—you would find His yoke heavy, and His burden impossible for you to bear! Some of you are mere worldlings—“lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” It may be that some of you are self-righteous and proud of that which should be your shame. Anyhow, if you are unregenerate, our text would not be true to you in your unconverted state. There is something else which must come before this. If any unsaved man thinks that he can, just as he is, shoulder Christ’s Cross and yield himself up to be Christ’s servant, he has made a great mistake. Before him, these burning sentences must flash like Sinai’s lightning—“You must be born-again.” “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be.” God will not be served by men whose sins have not been washed away by the precious blood of His dear Son! He will have none to bear His burdens but those who have, first of all, received of His Grace through faith in the great “Mediator between God and men, the Man, Christ Jesus.” So you see where you have to begin. “Come unto Me,” said Christ, “all you that labor and are heavy laden.” By that He means, “Do not suppose that because you are already laborers in another master’s service, you can wear My yoke. Do not imagine that because you are already heavily laden, you can bear My burden. You must first get rid of that which now makes you labor. You must first be rid of that which is a burden to you, for ‘no man can serve two masters.’ Your old, toilsome labor must be done with, for no man can carry the double burden of his own guilt and of the service of God. That cannot be.”