Alright, you can grab your Bibles, who's got your Bible? Can you just say, I got my Bible if you got your Bible, you're like physical. Wow, look at all of these people that brought their Bibles at church. I love it.
Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 11. We've been in a series that we just started in the last couple weeks called The Good News, and what we're doing is we're choosing one specific, unique people group that we want to, in essence, go, I want to look at what Jesus has done, look at what his message is, and actually share the good news for that unique people group or that demographic, so that if it applies to us, we can receive the good news, or if it doesn't apply to us, but we know somebody, we can actually be a bearer of good news, and we can actually share that good news everywhere we go, alright? So, today's message is called The Good News for the overwhelmed. The good news for the overwhelmed.
About 50% of Americans say that they're constantly stressed out. 25% of Americans are struggling with mental health, and 75% of Americans say that politics really stress them out. Not surprised, huh? When we think about being overwhelmed, it's not just about like, hey, what's the current events, though that does impact us, right?
On our phones, we see wars and famines and rumors of wars, Matthew 2425, we see so much come across our phones, violence, but I think that it's deeper than that, yes, that happens, but then we have just daily stressors that make us overwhelmed. It's like work has demands, and then there's constant communication. I don't know how many of you are on Slack, but then you're on Slack, or as an owner, whatever it is, and you're getting messages over and over and over again, and they come in at all times of the day, and then you're getting emails, and then you're getting text messages, and you're getting voxes if you're part of every day, right? And you're getting so many different inputs of communication, and then there's an expectation.
Like, well, when are you going to respond? This is my opportunity to apologize if you sent me a message, and I haven't responded in months. I'm so sorry. Yeah?
But I think that we've got a constant input that's taking place. There's this constant infusion of social media, information, knowledge, and then we get hit with the comparison that comes with it, right? And then we get a lot of information about the content of, okay, body comparison. We've got comparison of parenting, where it's like, okay, I should be parenting like that.
I should be fit like that. I should eat like that. And we're not just comparing ourselves to, like I'm not just comparing myself to Brandon, or John, or Alex, or whoever. I'm not just comparing myself anymore to the people that I'm seeing in my everyday life.
I'm comparing myself to the most fit men on the planet that have been edited as they're lifting. These guys are offended. You guys look great. You guys look great.
That's hilarious. But you don't measure up at all compared to these guys I've seen. Nobody's this feeling of I'm comparing myself to that beauty or that strength or that excellence or that wealth or that vacation or that all-inclusive or that parenting. And we're all of a sudden comparing ourselves to the most spiritually mature and the most healthy.
And we're going, oh man, I'm starting to feel overwhelmed because I'm not measuring up. And we go, man, we look at, I don't know if you've experienced this, but you start comparing yourself to others that are your same age. Oh man. And they're this season ahead and that season ahead and they've done this and they've accomplished this and they have this and I don't have that.
Right? And then you throw into the mix the nervous systems that we have where we're struggling with sleep deprivation, we're eating food that doesn't give us the nutrients that it should. And all of a sudden we're starting to get dysregulated more than maybe people that lived in other generations and we're starting to carry in with those things with the environment. And all of a sudden we're feeling we're isolated and we're supposed to be vulnerable but we're not supposed to be needy.
And we're supposed to be connected but don't bring too many problems to your people that you're connected with. Right? You got to thread the needle. You got to just hold most of it yourself.
You got to keep most of it internal. And then you've got the financial pressures of am I going to make ends meet? What if that credit card, you know, if I overdraw on my account, what if this? What if I lose my job?
What if that? What if I can't make payroll? And if there's just thing after thing after thing we start feeling overwhelmed. I mean, you just start, I looked at my notifications.
You know the screen time thing that you can do and you can see how many notifications at your phone. I got to get 2,200 notifications last week on my phone. Constantly getting bombarded. I know I need to change things, okay?
Constantly getting bombarded and feeling overwhelmed and then somebody in your life gets dysregulated. Maybe your child is upset because you didn't do the yogurt the way they thought you were supposed to do the yogurt. It's like a sore subject. Yeah?
You didn't give them what they wanted and all of a sudden they're dysregulated and you're about ready to get dysregulated too and you're feeling overwhelmed and then you go to church and Pastor Ben gets up there. And he just starts talking about reading dead theologians, right? And you start taking on this like maybe I should read dead theologians. He starts talking about orthodoxy and how he's reading these books and all of a sudden he's really into contemplation and prayer retreats and you're like, well I should probably do some prayer retreats and then the other preacher goes, and you should be passionate about the orphan and you should be passionate about social justice and you should be passionate about the Jewishness of Jesus.
And then all of a sudden you start carrying this heavy yoke and weight on your shoulders and you start thinking, I should do this. I should do this. I'm not enough that. I'm not enough this.
And then you got to figure out what are you going to do with AI and what are you going to do when Tesla comes out with the robots and are they going to fold your laundry or are you not going to go there if you have enough money, right? And then you're going, well am I younger? Am I older? Am I am?
What about abortion in my city? And what about supporting Israel? And what about the people that I'm supposed to be loving in my influence and all the end times and my preacher post-trip mid-trip? What does the Bible say?
I'm going to talk to somebody about that and then you've got another preacher and they go, okay it's all about deliverance. It's all about this. It's all about that. I'm getting tired.
Were you overwhelmed before this message? Because now you're really overwhelmed. It's not enough. And we feel like we're drowning sometimes.
It's like if you're holding a lot of stuff and then people are like here's the paper towels, here's the toilet paper and here's two, three, four gallons of milk and you're like I can't do it. Right? Now some of us men are like I can put like 15 grocery bags in my arms, right? We're only going to take one trip from the back of that minivan.
Yeah? It's like home improvement like Tim Allen. Okay. I don't know.
I didn't say that's not from last year. That was like real time just in the moment. No, no, it's just me. To be overwhelmed is to feel like it's too much.
To be overwhelmed feels like I can't do it anymore. I feel like I'm reaching the end of myself. And I want to turn in our Bibles to look to Jesus to actually have him speak to us, those that are feeling overwhelmed sometimes. So who's in Matthew 11 with me?
You're there. Okay. Before we jump in and read Matthew 11, I want to give context. That thing is really important.
Okay? So, in the start of Matthew 11, we've got John the Baptist disciples and you can just kind of follow along in Matthew 11. I'm just going to talk about it. If you want to graze in Matthew 11, I'll talk you totally can.
So at the start of the passage in Matthew 11, John the Baptist sends his disciples and he says, hey, are you the Messiah or should we wait for another, right? He says, are you the guy or what the heck? I thought I prepared the way for you. So what's happening?
Why am I still in prison? And then Jesus gives an answer and kind of puts John in his place a little bit. The disciples go on and then Jesus begins to in verse 20, he begins to talk about cities where he's been, where he's ministered. So he did like a bunch of miracles in some of these cities.
And in these cities, these cities were known for knowing God and believing in God. And yet Jesus has correction for him. He says, but you didn't repent. So you saw all these miracles, but you didn't change.
You didn't actually, you weren't moldable. Like a child is moldable. How many of you know when a little kid and you can just mold their ideas, mold their vision, mold how they see the world. And Jesus is going, all these cities, they encountered miracles, but they just stayed in their ways and they didn't become like little children and actually repent and turn and turn towards me.
So Jesus is saying, and then he says in verse 25, I thank you, Abba Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You've hidden these things from the wise and understanding all those people that have been puffed up with knowledge and you've revealed them to little children by your gracious desire. Verse 27, all things have been handed over by my father. No one knows me except the father and no one knows the father except me and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.
He's basically getting to the point where he's going, I'm the son of God. Yeah? He's kind of teeing it up. And before we get to the meat of what we're going after, I want to give one more context that I think is so important for us to understand before we dive into what Jesus says, because I know many of you have already looked at verse 28 and you're already starting to check out because you already have heard this message.
You've already heard this verse before. Maybe some of you have heard this verse hundreds of times. And I just want to like pause and go, if you don't understand what I'm about to say, you might as well just go home. Okay?
You might as well just leave. So catch it. So everybody tune in. Everybody say, I'm locked in.
I'm locked in. All right. Okay. So what was happening in the first century is that there would be disciples of rabbis.
Jesus was not the only first century rabbi. Okay? So the cities that Jesus is talking about, there's probably like five trusted respected rabbis in some of these cities. And they would each have disciples, just like Jesus had followers and disciples that were getting mentored by the rabbi.
And the disciples task was to basically walk really close with the rabbi and do everything the rabbi did. Okay? So what would happen is the rabbis would send their star students. How many of you guys were star students in high school or middle school or elementary school?
Raise your hand. Nobody's going to do that. Just teachers' pets. Get them out of here.
No, I'm just kidding. But these disciples were the star students. And what they do is they would send their star student, their top disciples to go challenge the yokes of the other rabbis. They would send their disciples to go challenge the yokes of their other disciples.
So what is a yoke then? The yoke of a rabbi is the commentary or understanding or interpretation of the scriptures. And not only the commentary, are you guys okay? The commentary of that rabbi's interpretation of the scriptures of the Torah, but also the way that that gets applied.
So it's the rabbis' hearing and doing, the understanding and the walking of it out. So that's what a rabbi's yoke is. So as an example, there's a story where there's some other disciples and they come to Jesus and they're challenging Jesus. And they're saying, all right, well, there's a lady.
And the lady got married seven times. All of her husbands died and she didn't have any kids. Who's she going to be married to in the new heavens and the new earth? That whole thing, that interaction, if you've heard that, is a rabbi sending his disciple to go test the bulletproofness of Jesus as a rabbi and his commentary and interpretation on how the world works and his commentary on philosophy and theology and scriptures.
So with that context, we're going to read Matthew 11. Some of you, are you overwhelmed or are you okay? All right. Matthew 11, verse 28 says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden or have heavy loads.
And I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you're going to find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus is talking about a yoke.
How many of you guys know that a yoke in practical, the practical sense is like what you would put over in oxen and they would plow, right? So is this wooden yoke that you put over the back of a beast of burden. But in this usage, he's talking about the yoke of a rabbi, the understanding and the commentary of a rabbi on the scriptures and then how that works out and how that gets played out. And he says, my yoke is easy.
My burden is light. Come to me. If you want rest, I'm going to give it to you. But Jesus is going after two things.
Say two with me. He wants us to know two things. The first is that he's not like any other rabbi. He's not just a rabbi.
That's the first thing that he's wanting to communicate. The second thing that he's wanting to communicate is this is what happens when you take my yoke. When you take my interpretation of reality, when you take on my way, when you become my disciple because that's what a disciple would do, they would take on the yoke of the rabbi. That's what it meant to be a disciple.
So if you come under my interpretation of reality, this is the fruit of it. So those are the two things that he's getting out. He wants us to know. So Matthew 11, I want to focus on three phrases that he's really that's kind of offensive to the Jews as they're listening to him.
I want you to look at these three phrases. I will give you rest. The phrase I am meek and lowly. And the phrase rest for your souls.
All three of those phrases are actually quotes from Old Testament passages. And Jesus is trying to make a point. So turn in your Bibles to Exodus 33. We're going to go after I will give you rest.
Exodus 33. Jesus is quoting this passage. Exodus 33.14. Exodus 33.14.
He says this. This is Yahweh talking to Moses. Next to this 33 he says this. He always says my presence will go with you and I will give you rest.
So Jesus is making a point. And he says come to me and I will give you rest. For a Jewish here in this moment, that is heretical and heresy. Because what Jesus is going, what did you just say?
You're going to give me rest. Who do you think you are God? And Jesus is going. Yep.
Jesus is declaring in this passage he's going, I'm not like any other rabbi. I am Yahweh in the flesh. Come to me and I will give you rest. Then he starts quoting.
He starts quoting Numbers 12, verse 3. If you want to turn there, you can. I'm just going to quote it. When he's talking about meek and lowly.
This is a passage where Moses or a different author that Moses hired out says that Moses was meek more than any other people on the earth. So Moses, I can't imagine Moses being like, pinning that being like, I am the most meek. More than any other person on the planet. I can't imagine the most meek saying that.
But what Jesus is articulating is I'm not just Yahweh. I'm the prophet that you respect the most from all of the Talmud, all of the Old Testament, all the Torah. Do you want to know? I'm the greater Moses.
So I'm not just Yahweh in the flesh. I'm the greater Moses that sets you free from the yoke of slavery. And I give you a different yoke, not the yoke of the slavery of Egypt. But I'm going to set you free from slavery of sin.
And I'm going to give you a different yoke. I'm the greater Moses. And then in Jeremiah 6 verse 16, this passage is talking about the Word of God. It says, ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls.
That phrase rests for your souls. Jeremiah 6 verse 16. Jesus is going, I am the Torah. I am the Word.
He's going, I am Yahweh. I am the greater Moses. And I am the truth. I am the Word.
What's going to set you free? Me. I am the Word that brings freedom. Who's going to set you free?
I am. I'm the greater Moses. Who is the one that's going to give you rest? I am.
I am the creator of heaven and earth. Jesus is going, I'm not just like any other rabbi. When you take on my yoke, it's a different type of yoke. It's a yoke that can actually bring rest.
It's a yoke that isn't heavy. It's a yoke that can actually bring peace to your soul. That's good news. Man, I'm so glad I got a rabbi that when I follow him and come under his concept of reality and his commentary, that it actually brings freedom.
I think the most overwhelming thing, if I could say this, I think the most overwhelming thing is to have no relationship with rabbi, Jesus. I think the most overwhelming thing is to not know why you're alive, to not know where you're going, to not know somebody that loves you at your worst, that's never going to leave you, to not know what to do with the hopelessness you have, to not feel like anybody understands you, to not know how to grapple with your sins and mistakes because you feel guilt and you feel shame that you're always trying to cover up, to actually feel separate from God. There's nothing more overwhelming than to not know Jesus. And some of us in the room, some friend brought you, you heard about every day, and I just want you to know, the most overwhelming thing in all creation is to be separated from God.
And Jesus came so that you wouldn't have to be separate from God, that you wouldn't have to be distant, that you wouldn't have to clean yourself up before you come to church, but that you would know him and that you would know his love and know his forgiveness, that you would know his redemption and how he can reconcile you so that you don't have to have a debt and a balance always that you're trying to make up. There's nothing more overwhelming than not knowing what God thinks of you. Jesus made a way so that we actually can know his love, so that we can have all of our debts of sin paid, so that we can come right into the presence of God and go, here I am, with no shame, no guilt, no second guessing, knowing God is my father because of what Jesus has done for me. It's the call of every human to know God and love him and know his love, and then become transformed to looking like him and acting like him.
It's the good news, the good news for the really overwhelmed that Jesus came. And for those of us who have already surrendered to Jesus, I want to lean in on the fruit of like, hey, when we've got him and he's given us his yoke, the fruit of that is rest. We can actually have rest in our souls when there's stressful things that are happening. I mean, talk about Jesus displaying rest when he's hanging out in the boat, storms are capsizing the boat and he's just totally a rest.
Man, I want that type of yoke over me. When everybody's dysregulated, everything's falling apart, financially, emotionally, socially, relationally, all of it is just completely going sideways. And then there he is, totally at rest. We always tell our kids, you know, if the storm, like in the summers storms coming tornado warning and we'll say, hey, I want you to look at mom and dad's face because they're starting to ramp up getting afraid.
So you always can know if you're supposed to be afraid by seeing if mom and dad are afraid. If mom and dad aren't afraid, you don't need to be afraid. And then we look at Jesus and we lift our chin and we look at him and go, are you overwhelmed? He's going, no.
Are you sure? This seems like really the pressure, the fire, the heat is getting turned up, the sand is shifting, the waters are rising, the wind is blowing. Are you sure you're not overwhelmed? Lift up your eyes, look to the hills, where does your help come from?
Your help comes from the Lord who created every single molecule in the universe. And he's like, hey, do you want my yoke or do you not want my yoke? Do you want my perspective on reality and your life or would you prefer not? Yeah, I want your yoke.
I think gives us rest. It's easy, his yoke is easy, and it's another way to say that is good fitting. So I think it's interesting, I just want to name this is really important. He's not saying, I'm giving you a unique yoke that's your yoke.
He's saying, I'm giving you my yoke. It's not your yoke, it's my yoke. In other words, it's not your truth, it's my truth. Are you hearing me?
It's not, well, that's your truth and that's my truth and that's good that's your truth, this is mine. God is not giving out unique truths to humanity. He's going, there's one truth, it's mine and I'll give it to you. And it's going to fit you perfectly.
My truth is going to fit your unique you perfectly. It's going to be rest for your soul. The most restful thing for your soul is not your truth. The most restful thing for your soul is not you figuring it out with new age spiritualism and self-help humanism.
That's not what you're, that's not going to get you rest, right? See, what we do as Americans is we like mixture. Sometimes I look at other cultures in the nations and I go, oh wow, they're mixing spiritualism with Christianity. Like I remember growing up and hearing stories from Haiti and how there was people that were mixing following Jesus with witchcraft and there was all kinds, there was mixture happening within the church and I could just couldn't even believe it.
And then the American church does it a little bit more subtly, less spiritual. And what they do is they go, Jesus, yeah, come on in, get in the back seat. Man, I love having you part of my life. And Jesus is going, no, that's not how it works buddy.
Get out of the driver's seat. You're going to take my yoke on you. You get in the back seat. I'm going to let you be in it for your life and I'm going to be the one that you're actually going to follow.
I don't just fit into your life. I'm Yahweh. I'm not just some good teacher. I'm not just some good prophet.
I'm Yahweh. I'm the greater Moses. I'm the word. I'm truth.
It's not your truth. I am the truth. Do you want me? Do you want me to be the yoke over you?
It's not whatever feels good. And God is not going, I'm giving you my custom yoke. And it's not your yoke. It's the Lord's yoke.
It's not your truth or my truth. It's his truth. Because my truth makes me feel stressed rather than get rest. My truth, it's hard rather than easy in my life.
And it's heavy rather than light. Why you don't downcast, oh my soul. Well, probably because there's been moments where you've been taking on your yoke rather than his yoke. Or you've been, you know, this is what we do in everyday life.
What we do is we feel really overwhelmed. I don't know if you relate with this. You feel really overwhelmed. My arms are full.
I can't hold it, right? And so what we do is we figure out how to cope with being overwhelmed. How to medicate the feeling of overwhelmed. And so we try to just go, I don't know what to do.
And we just try to throw everything up in the air. And we just try to run. We try to escape the overwhelmed. And we go right into escaping with screens and substances and food, DQ, and Chick-fil-A milkshakes with Oreo in them, chocolate in the Oreo.
If you like that. And you're like, I'm going to escape and I'm going to cope with online shopping. And it's like July. And you're like, I'm just doing Christmas shopping.
You know? Yeah, I'm just seeing. There's like so many things that we play games of coping. And maybe some of you, how you cope is you just go right into work mode.
You're like, it feels chaotic. I just got to put my head down and plow. If I can just finish this and finish that and finish this, then I won't be overwhelmed. And then you finish everything and you're still kind of overwhelmed.
I don't know if you grew up this way or if this is something you do, your spouse is blessed if you do this. But some of us were like, I feel out of control. And then you go right into, what can I control? I can control my house.
I'm going to clean my house. And you're just like a white tornado that just starts going and just cleaning. You can lean over to your spouse that does that and be like, I'm so thankful for you. Yeah?
Maybe you're going to screens. Maybe you're going to social media. Maybe you're going into gossip. Maybe you're going into judgment.
Whatever it is, we find a way to start coping. And then we're done coping. I just want to say this. If you're coping in unhealthy ways that are actually bringing destruction, I want to encourage you to like today gets to be your day where you turn.
Today gets to be the day where you're going. I'm coming into the light. I've been in secrecy. I've been hiding.
And I've been looking at this. I've been taking this. I've been going to the cabinet for that. I've been going to the liquor store.
I've been getting drugs from them. I've been getting weed from this dispensary. And you just come out into the light and you go, I don't want to cope with things that are going to destroy my life anymore. That's going to fog my reality and fog my presence and my connection to him.
And I just want to like, hey, today can be your day. You don't have to live in that any longer. The Lord's giving you other tools that can help you in that. And you're going, but you don't understand.
And you're like, hey, listen, I know. But I know that there's people in our community that have walked through the journey of freedom out of addiction and you're not alone in it. You're not alone in that journey. So if you're going, I'm the only one.
No, you're not the only one. There's so many that have overcome alcohol addiction in our community. There's so many that have overcome addictions that we feel like, oh, man, nobody really struggles the way I stop it. This is the body of Christ.
We come from all different struggles and all different devices. And Jesus is the one that sets us free from all of it. So, okay, that's over here. Now we're done coping with whatever, with the milkshake.
Yeah? Done coping with Instagram. Done coping with whatever it is, filming the plane. And then we realize everything is still there.
Yeah? We go, oh, no. And it feels just as heavy, maybe more heavy. We just wasted time.
And now it feels a little bit more heavy. So then what we do is we go to some modern rabbis. We start figuring out who is going to help me with this feeling of overwhelm. So we start searching for podcasts.
We start searching for some yolks of modern rabbis. We start going, I wonder if Brene Brown has any, I wonder if Glennon Doyle or Oprah or Joe Rogan or Trevor Noah or Andrew Huberman or Malcolm Gladwell or Jordan Peterson or Tucker or Obama or Trump, whoever, Michelle, whoever it is. And we start going and we start pursuing other yolks to help us with our overwhelm. We start going, I wonder what they have to say about my heavy burdens.
I wonder if they have any insight. I wonder if they have any wisdom. I'm really overwhelmed. I wonder if they have any health insight for me, any scientific insight for me, any knowledge for me.
And what happens when we go there is we listen to it and we get a little bit more puffed up. We get a little bit more knowledge and we get a little bit more guilty because we never implement what they say. And all of a sudden the knowledge starts piling up of all the things that we should do that we know that we can't. And some of the things you shouldn't do.
Some of the wisdom is evil and not of God and actually deception because it really is self-help humanism and puts you at the center. And then what happens is you're on this plow. You got Jesus yoke on you. You're that ox.
And all you're doing is navel gazing. And since you're navel gazing, you're going sideways. Have you ever tried to walk in a straight line by just trying it? Well, I don't know.
That probably works fine. How you walk in a straight line when you're plowing is if you look straight ahead. That's my point. You look up.
Eyes up. Where does your help come from? It doesn't come from you in self-discovery, new age spiritualism. Seeing if you can meditate and into yourself a little bit more and then maybe you're going to have understanding and get free from the overwhelm and free from the stress.
And maybe if you can get in this position and then empty yourself then you're not going to be as overwhelmed. And the Lord is going, Hey, take my yoke. Come from me. I will give you rest.
I will give you a burden that's light. I'm not saying that you're not going to have a burden. You're going to carry a burden because that's what you were created to do. You were created to carry things but not in isolation.
You were created to carry things with me. What does X is 33 say? What does Jesus quoting? He's going, my presence is going to go with you.
I'm locked in on this yoke with you. I'm right here. It's oftentimes what they would do in the first century is they'd have an elder, stronger ox paired with a younger one so that that younger one could know how to actually plow. Jesus is the elder one that's taking most of the weight.
He's like, I'm going to let you act. I'm going to let you think that you're carrying a lot of weight. But we all know it's light for you. And I'm carrying.
I'm the one that has the burden of shoulders. You're going, I don't know how to process all this information. The Lord is like, yeah, hit me with it. Do you know when you feel really overwhelmed that you're pretty much the worst?
That you're so unpleasant. You're overwhelmed and you're just kind of moody, short, little snappy. Got a little toot on you. Yeah?
Not fun. And what that does is it makes people around you want to reject you or separate themselves from you and then you feel more isolated. None of this spouses in this room would ever do that. Even we'll do these things like, I just need some space, right?
There's some help in that. I don't know. What does Jesus say when you're heavy laden? When you got a heavy load, you feel overwhelmed when you're at your worst, when you're a little moody.
What does he say to you? He says, come to me. Come on. You're like, oh, no Lord.
I'm not in a good spot. He's like, come on. Come on. Come to me.
You feel overloaded? Come to me. You feel stressed out? Yeah, come over here.
I'm your guy. You feel like I got nothing. I'm at the end of my rope. The Lord's like, he's safe when we're at our worst, when we feel overwhelmed.
He says, come to me when you're all dysregulated and I'm going to co-regulate. Remember when we talked about this last week when you're in your feeling brain rather than your thinking brain? You feel big emotions? You know, if you can't self-regulate, you need somebody to help co-regulate your emotions.
And Jesus is going, I love co-regulating your emotions that are big. I love being with you when you feel dysregulated because I'm really good at co-regulating and I'm never going to leave you and I'm never going to forsake you. I'm never going to abandon you and I'm never going to leave you. I'm a manual God with you.
I'm giving you my Holy Spirit and he's never going to go anywhere. He's always going to be right there. And now you're not just stuck in being like the Ushi Goshi, oh, he's never going to leave me and I'm still going to be a mess. He says, I've got a yoke for you though.
I've got a perspective for you. I've got vision for you. I've got clarity for you. I've got understanding for you.
I've got some commentary for you. I've got a way. I've got tools. I've got things that you can actually implement.
I've got wisdom, which is knowledge applied at the right time. You're going, I don't got wisdom. And the Lord's like, take my yoke upon you. I'm going to give you wisdom.
Just ask me, James one. So this is what I want to do. I want us to practice inviting the Lord in when we feel overwhelmed. And I also want us to repent from all of these yokes of voices that we've been going to them as a well to drink from.
And they've actually not been adding anything to our lives other than self-help, self-focus that is actually creating more heavy load. Everyone know I've really become more spiritual and I just want to put like a yellow flag, red flag, and wave it and just go, let's go to him. Let's go to him. Let's repent from all of these other yokes.
Let's turn away from all of these other yokes and turn and come up under his yoke, his commentary, his perspective on reality. All right? Let's all stand. I'm being reminded of Galatians with the Apostle Paul.
He's speaking of the Galatians and he says, Hey, who has bewitched you? You foolish Galatians. You've been drinking from all of these other cisterns, all of these other wells. You've been taking on heavy yokes, but I have come, Jesus is saying, to set you free, to give you a yoke that's not a yoke of slavery, but a yoke of freedom.
And I see the Lord really helping to kind of just go, Hey, there might be a time, maybe through the end of the year that some of you are going to go, I feel an invitation from the Lord to actually fast podcast, YouTube videos, books, self-help, fill in the blank. And the Lord is going to help us get detoxed from all the inputs so that he's the only yoke that we're coming up under. I think that there's an invitation for some of us. And even as I say that, you're going, Yeah, that's, I need that.
I don't feel like it and I don't want to and I don't know what I'm going to go with to do at the time. He'll take care of that. You just make a choice in your heart. Like, Yeah, I'm going to do that.
Yeah? I know there's some of you. I've seen some of you, you know it's you. Yeah?
Yeah, I'm going to fast. Let's do it through January 1st. You're like, Yep. I'm going to detox from all of the other opinions of man and I'm going to go straight to the Lord.
I want you to get spread out in some elbow room. What we're going to do is we're going to take five minutes and I want you to get comfortable whether you want to sit down, stand if you want to come to the altar, you can come into the altar space. Just get some room so you can be present to the Lord. Lord really wants to meet us in our feelings of feeling overwhelmed.
You can close your eyes with me. What we're going to do is, is we're going to enter in and connecting with the Lord with thanksgiving. We're just going to thank him a little bit and we're going to whisper with him as we pray together. We're going to whisper because it's a reminder of how close he is to us.
So don't pray. I want you to whisper just loud enough for you to hear your own voice and it's a reminder of, Ah, my rabbi is right here. YAH WAIS, close enough to hear my whisper. What we're going to do is just enter into thanksgiving.
Just thanking the Lord. Thank you. And you can just do it in your own words. You can say, Lord, thank you that I can come to you when I feel overwhelmed.
If it helps you and you just want to repeat after me, you totally can. You want to turn in your own words, you can't. Lord, thank you that I can come to you when I feel overwhelmed. Thank you that you actually give rest.
When I feel like the load is heavy, when I feel like I can't hold it anymore. Thank you that I can learn from you, that I can take on your perspective and that you're empathetic and humble, that you actually get it. Your wisdom is the right fit for me. Your understanding is what I need.
I'm so thankful that you know the burden that I can handle and you're not going to give me more than I can handle. Thank you that I have everything I need for life and godliness, for life and godliness. Thank you, Lord. We're just going to enter into a time of repentance.
Just turning away, breaking free from those yokes or those voices that we've actually been drinking from or been under, thinking that they're going to be the key to helping us. And what I want us to do is just in our own words, just say, Lord, I turn away from this teacher and this rabbi, this voice that I kept on going to. They're not my understanding. They're not my yoke.
They're not my rabbi. You can just kind of turn it into your own words. You can just say, Lord, they're not the one that can truly help me. You can just name them before the Lord.
No, Lord, I give them over to you. I don't entrust myself to them anymore. I come up under your perspective. I've been listening to their commentary more than I've been talking to you and reading the word.
You can just kind of smile at him and go, that was funny that I was doing that. You got a good yoke for me. You can just smile like you're. You know what's best for me.
And what we're going to do is we're going to, in our imagination, you can close your eyes in your imagination. You can picture all of the stuff that's been overwhelming you. You can just rattle it off in your mind. All those things that have felt overwhelming.
All those things that's been heavy and bearing down on your soul. Things have been stressing you out after you've listed those things in your mind. You can just present them before him. Full arms and everything.
And you can just say to the Lord, whisper, and you can say, this is what I got. This is all of it. Here it is. Everything that's been so heavy.
And what I want you to do is you begin to engage with the Holy Spirit in your own words. And you just say, Lord, what should I hold? What should I actually carry with you? What are burdens that I'm actually supposed to carry with you?
And what are those things that I'm actually just supposed to hand over to you? Are certain things where the Lord's going, hey, even mulling that thing over, you don't, you got to hand that over to me. You got to hand that over to me for now. You can just start asking him, Holy Spirit, what am I supposed to?
What's mine to hold? And what's ours to hold? What's ours to hold? And what's not mine to hold?
It's a better question. What's not mine to hold? And what's ours to hold? I'm going to give you space and time where I'm not talking.
Should you take this? Too heavy for my shoulders. Picture of some of us in the room where you're feeling overwhelmed and you're coping in certain ways and you're turning on a show, you're opening the fridge, going to the freezer. Feeling overwhelmed and the Lord just said, hey, let's just do that together from now on.
Sometimes we feel like in those moments when we feel overwhelmed that we either just have the option of I give myself over to just escaping or I cope by reading my Bible and praying. And those are our two options. But there's a third way where we can actually go, Lord, I'm going to eat ice cream with you. Now that's not eating the whole carton with him.
But he understands us. He gets it. And he's going, hey, that's not it. Be so strict and religious.
Like, I know your frailty. Just invite me in. My presence while you watch the show is going to keep you and it's going to give you rest because we're going to be together in it. And then he's going to help if there's any, if you've got checks in your heart and you're like, oh, what am I doing?
Because you're doing it with him. And then lastly, as you continue to close your eyes, you're with the Lord, just to be engaged with the Lord. I really believe that the Lord wants to speak to us. Just for a couple more minutes.
You can just ask the Holy Spirit, Lord, is there something that you want me to know about these things? You know those things that you've, he said, hey, let's carry this together. There's actually things that he wants to maybe speak to you. You can just say, Lord, you got anything from me?
In your own words, is there anything that you want me to know? Just ask the Holy Spirit that question. Anything you want me to know about this area that's causing overwhelm? Anything you want me to do?
When you're ready, you can stand with me. So I can pray to send you out. Altar ministry, you guys can come in front. It's really, really, really good for us to be under his yoke, to not lean on our own understanding, to not try to figure it out by ourselves, but in all of our ways, inviting him in and acknowledging him.
So Lord, I thank you. If you want to put out your hands, you can. It's just this picture of, I'm all yours. It's all yours.
So Lord, I thank you. I thank you for all of my brothers and sisters. I thank you for this tool of connection with you that we learn. And Lord, we don't want to just lift our chin at church.
We don't want to just look at you and come under your yoke on Sundays. Lord, we want to actually connect with you in our everyday lives over and over and over again. We want to be with you. We want to abide in you.
So Lord, I pray for a strengthening this week for your people to abide in you. And God, would you strengthen them to comprehend the greatness of your love? They need strength because your love could literally kill them. It's so powerful.
So strengthen them up a little bit so they can handle how amazing your love is this week. And that's what I need. Jesus' name. I commissioned them out.
And everybody said amen.