Our Scripture Lesson for today is 2 Corinthians Chapter 6: verses and Matthew 11:

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1 Our Scripture Lesson for today is 2 Corinthians Chapter 6: verses and Matthew 11: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Satan? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people. And if you will now turn to Matthew 11: Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. 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; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please turn to hymn 347 Spirit Song. Such a beautiful song: O let him have all the things that hold you, and his Spirit like a dove will descend upon your life and make you whole. Does it not reflect the scripture we just read you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden light. One common element among these two scriptures is a yoke. In the first scripture it is asking us to not be yoked together with unbelievers and the second one is asking us to be yoked to the Lord. So just what is a yoke? What is its primary purpose? What does it do?

2 Basically a yoke is a heavy wooden harness that usually fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen. It is then attached to a piece of equipment that the oxen are to pull. It can be hard work, difficult work, but when two oxen are yoked together, the burden is shared. That passage from Matthew is one of my favorite verses. There is great comfort for me in realizing that when yoked to the Lord my burdens will be lighter, my life better, there is rest for my soul. When I think about my burdens being lighter it reminds me of the story of Footprints in the Sand. I m sure most of you have heard of it. It is the story of a man who had a dream about walking on the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord. When the last scene of his life flashes before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of prints. He also noticed that it happened at the lowest and saddest points in his life. This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it. Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you d walk with me all the way. But I noticed that during the most troubled times in my life there is only one set of footprints. I don t understand why when I needed you most you would leave me. The Lord replied, My precious, precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you. When we yoke ourselves to the Lord, when we decide to walk with him, he not only will make our burdens lighter and even shoulder our burdens for us, he will carry us through the most difficult of times.

3 But what if we don t yoke ourselves to the Lord? What if, as scripture says, we yoke ourselves to unbelief or to sin, jealousy, anger, even work, or materialistic things? There is a multitude of things that we can yoke ourselves to that can weight us down, and cause us despair, loneliness, unhappiness, and to move away from the Lord. There is another footprint story that is not as well known. It was sent to me last year by a friend in her Christmas card. It was written by the Christian writer Beth Moore. It goes like this: Imagine going to heaven and standing by God as He lovingly shows you the calendar of His plan for your earthly life. It begins on the day you were born. Once you received Christ as Savior, every day that follows is outlined in red. You see footprints walking through each day of each week of your life. On many of the days, two sets of footprints appear. You inquire, Father, are those my footprints on the calendar everyday and the second set of prints when you joined me? He answers, No My precious Child. The consistent foot prints on your calendar are Mine. The second set of footprints is when you joined Me. Where were you going Father? To the destiny I planned for you, hoping you d follow. But Father, where are my footprints all those times? He answers, Sometimes you went back to look at old resentments and habits while I was still going forward, hoping you d join Me. Sometimes, you departed from My path and chose your own calendar instead. Other times, your footprints can even be seen on another person s calendar because you thought you liked their plan better. At other times, you simply stopped because

4 you would not let go of something you could not take into the next day. But, Father, we ended up OK even if I didn t walk with You every day, didn t we? He holds you close and smiles, Yes. Child, we ended up OK. But, you see, Ok was never what I had in mind for you. Father, what are those golden treasure boxes on certain days? Blessings, My child, I had for you along the way. Those that are open are those you received. Those still closed were days you did not walk with Me. When I read this, I thought wow. Now, that puts a different perspective on things. I know that there are many days that I have not walked with God. Too busy or to tired to open my Bible, or do a devotional. Too busy to say a little prayer before eating the lunch I m ready to gobble up because I m in a big hurry; Or making decisions without really asking for His guidance, because after all I do know how to run my own life. I do feel I have had a blessed life. I believe I have opened more than a few of those treasure boxes along the way. But if I am to be really honest and were to look back, I know there are a lot of unopened treasures sitting on my calendar. There are days when I did not walk with the Lord. I ve had days when I was so angry that I could not see straight; or days when I focused on getting even when someone did me wrong, often at the expense of my own piece of mind. And now I wonder what I ve missed. Well you know, you can t go back and change the past. You can t go back and gather up those unopened treasures. Life doesn t work that way, and God s plan for us doesn t work that way. No, we can t do that. But what we can do is unyoke ourselves from the things that keep us from walking with God. Unyoke ourselves

5 from unbelievers who would tempt us to do things we shouldn t. Unyoke ourselves from petty grievances, anger, and other sins that would hold us back from moving on to the next day and collecting the blessings that are in store for us. Sometimes we yearn for things we don t have, a better job, house, new car, etc., without realizing how good we have it already. I m reminded of an employee that we fired for poor attendance when I worked in Marengo. He was a first pressman, had excellent pay and benefits but just couldn t quite figure out how to get to work on time. He always danced around the attendance policy. He would get so many write-ups and then realize he was on his final warning and would clean his act up for six months. He played this game for years, but he finally slipped up and lost his job. A year later he came back begging for a job, any job. He never appreciated the blessings he had when he worked there, it was only in retrospect after trying to find a job with equivalent pay and benefits that he realized he had killed the golden goose. Will you be like this guy, so that at the end of life, looking back in retrospect, you finally realize what you missed during the times when you weren t yoked to the Lord, wondering what was in those golden treasure boxes? Or will you consider walking with the Lord; yoking yourself to him; availing yourself to all he has to offer. You know Jesus doesn t offer a life of luxurious ease, he never promised a rose garden, but he does offer a shared yoke, with the weight falling on bigger shoulders than ours. He is someone with more pulling power and strength, someone willing to share life s responsibilities with you, if you let him, if you ask. So how does one go about yoking oneself to God? Asking the Lord for guidance, immersing oneself in the word of God, and thoughtful prayer are good starts. John Wesley sums it up in three steps, do good, do no harm and connect with God. And how do we

6 connect with God? (Through Prayer, studying our Bibles, attending church on a regular basis) all provide opportunities to connect with God. Our actions will either bring us closer to God or move us away from God. For example, we can follow the greatest commandment Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. We can follow the Great Commission Go therefore and make disciples. When we do these types of actions we also begin to unyoke from the distractions and behaviors that cause us to miss those golden treasure boxes along life s way and begin to walk with God experiencing all the blessings that He has in store for us.