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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature John stott. Born in 1921, he was well known throughout the world for his writings and godly influence in the global church. He founded Langham Partnership in response to the growing needs he heard from churches and pastors in the majority world. Today, John Stott presents a study on freedom and submission.
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Some Christian people speak and write as if there were no such thing as tension in Christian experience, and that if there is, there ought not to be, because they seem to think the Christian life is entirely free from from inward conflict, being a life of unbroken repose. Such people are not any strangely unbalanced in their views, but strangely blind to what the New Testament depicts and describes. Have they never ever heard Jesus Christ say, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it has been accomplished? Have they never lingered with him in Gethsemane, hearing his cries and seeing his bloody sweat? Or if they suppose that the case of Jesus was unique, have they never entered into the mind and heart of the apostle Paul? Surely it is abundantly plain, both from the book of Acts and from the letters of Paul, that he was no stranger to suspense or to sorrow or to other strong emotions. He was well acquainted with groans and tears. He could write of fightings without and fears within, and on one occasion described himself as utterly, unbearably crushed. No, the truth is that tension and conflict are integral to real Christianity. The Christian life is a fight to be fought and a race to be run. It includes pain as well as pleasure, sorrow as well as joy, strenuous effort as well as restful trust, and even a certain suspense and fear, as well as love and peace. Under this general heading, then, of tensions in Christian experience, I want to begin first today with the tension between freedom and submission. I want to try to answer the question, how can I be free if I have to obey? Let me say at once that freedom and submission are both essential aspects of Christian discipleship. Take Christ's teaching According to John 8, verse 36, Jesus said, if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. But he also said, and it's recorded in John 14:15 and John 15:14, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. You are my friends, and if you do what I command you, there is, therefore you see, both freedom and submission to his authority in obedience to his commandments. Or take the Apostle Paul in his Letter to the Galatians, chapter five, verse one, he wrote, for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Whereas in Romans 6:22 he read that now you have been set free from sin, you have become slaves of God. Once again there is both freedom and slavery. Let me ask this question then. If I am a Christian, am I free or am I a slave? Am I my own master, or must I submit to Christ? The only possible answer to this question is both. Indeed, each involves the other and must be interpreted by the other. If I'm a Christian, I have found in the slavery of Christ the only true freedom whereas if I'm a Christian, I have found in the freedom of Christ the only true slavery. With that introduction, let me read to you some familiar words of Jesus which are recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11, verses 28 to 30 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 heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. These words are so familiar to us as a gospel text that it's easy to miss their application to the Christian life of obedience. But let me ask you to notice that there are here two invitations of Jesus, not one. And it's a mark of our tendency to unbalance that we probably know verse 28 by heart and probably neglect verses 29 and 30. The first invitation is, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden. The second invitation is, take my yoke upon you. Learn from me first. Then we are to come to Christ if we're heavy laden, so that he may lift our burden. But secondly, we are to take upon us Christ's burden and Christ's yoke. Indeed, what Jesus Christ rarely offers is a kind of exchange. He takes off our yoke and our burden, but he gives us his yoke and his burden instead. Further, the yoke we lose when we come to Christ is a misfit yoke, and the burden we lose is heavy. Come to me all you who are heavy laden, he said, whereas he adds, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I fear there are too many of us who want to throw Christ's teaching off balance. We want the rest without the yoke. We want to lose our burden, but we don't want to gain Christ's. But a very striking thing is this truth that although there are two invitations of Jesus, the promise attached to both invitations is precisely the same, namely, rest. Listen again. 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, and you will find rest unto your souls. It's obvious that the end result of losing our burden is that we find rest. But it's not so obvious, although equally important, that when we gain Christ's burden, we also find rest. How long that you should understand this truth. Rest and refreshment the rest and refreshment of Jesus Christ are due not only to the freedom of losing our burden, but also to the bondage of gaining his. Both freedom and submission bring rest. Now let's look at greater detail at these verses, and I ask you first to observe the invitation Christ gives. Take my yoke upon you, he says, and learn from me. Now, the yoke was and still is, in developing countries, a horizontal wooden bar which is laid on the necks of an ox or oxen when they're harnessed to the plough or to a wagon. And the thought here in Christ's invitation, take my yoke upon you, is not of Christ and the Christian yoked together like oxen, but of Christ as the farmer who lays his harness upon the oxen. Jesus Christ portrays himself not as our yoke fellow with whom we walk together in partnership, but as our teacher and Lord who expects us to submit to his discipline. This is plain from the words that follow. For he says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. So to take Christ's yoke upon us is to learn from him. It's to accept a position of voluntary subordination to Jesus Christ. It is to submit to him as our teacher and our Lord. Listen to these words of Jesus in John 13:13. You call me teacher and Lord, he said, and you're right, that is what I am. In other words, these expressions, teacher and Lord, are not courtesy titles, but a reality. If Jesus is our teacher, we must submit our minds to his mind. If Jesus is our Lord, we must submit our wills to his will. And this is precisely what it means to assume the yoke of Christ. He places his yoke on our mind, instructing us what to believe. And he places his yoke on our will, commanding us how to behave. And when the Christian has truly submitted to the yoke of Christ, he never presumes either to disagree with Christ or to disobey Christ. Show me a person who wanders selectively through Scripture like a gardener through a herbaceous border, picking what he likes and leaving what he doesn't like, and I will have to say to you that this is a person who has never submitted to the yoke of Christ. Nobody has been truly converted who has not been both intellectually and morally converted. And nobody has been intellectually converted who hasn't submitted his mind to the yoke of Christ, while nobody has been morally converted who hasn't submitted his will to the yoke of Christ. Are we clear then about this? First thing, the invitation Christ gives to take his yoke upon our mind and our will. Then secondly, I ask you to note the promise Christ makes. He says, you will find rest unto your souls. How sweet and refreshing the words sound. Why, they positively make the mouth water. They are one of the most precious of all gods, exceeding great and precious promises. How many people there are today seeking rest for their souls? But where is the rest of Jesus Christ to be found? Several answers could be given to this question. First and foremost, we find rest at the cross, where burdens are lifted and the Christian takes three leaps for joy as his burden looses from off his shoulder and falls from off his back. We find rest also partly through what is called the rest of faith, as we put our whole trust in Christ, crucified and risen, and stay our minds on God and are kept in perfect peace. But partly also, we find rest as we take upon us the yoke of Christ and learn from him, submitting our minds and our wills to his authority. There is, of course, a paradox in this teaching. Their true rest, the deep rest of mind and will and soul and spirit, is found not in seeking to escape from the yoke of Christ, but in humbly submitting to it. I imagine you've heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor who was hanged by Himmler's special order at the Flossenburg concentration camp in April 1945, only a few days before it was liberated by the Allies. And you probably know that he wrote in 1937 a book called the Cost of Discipleship. Here's a quotation from Only the man who follows the command of Jesus without reserve and submits unresistingly to his yoke, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. And I'm sure Bonhoeffer is right in what he says here. This is precisely what Jesus teaches, and Jesus emphasized it by various other metaphors. The only way to find ourselves, he said, is to lose ourselves. The only way to begin to Live is first to die. The only way to obtain Christ's rest is to accept Christ's yoke. The only way to enter liberty is to submit to his bondage. And this teaching is of extreme importance today, in which there is a widespread revolt against all authority and in which all forms of authority are being challenged. So far we've seen the invitation that Christ gives and the promise that Christ makes. Thirdly, I ask you to observe the reasons Christ gives or adds. He says, for my yoke is easy. That's his first reason. And I am gentle and lowly in heart. That's his second reason, reasons why we should still take his yoke upon us, however hard it may seem. The first reason, then, is that Christ's yoke is easy. There can be no doubt that one of the major reasons for our refusal to submit to the yoke of Christ is that we're afraid of it. We think that it will be a misfit yoke, like the teaching of the Pharisees, which was a grievous burden hard to bear. But we don't need to fear the yoke of Christ. His yoke is easy. How is this? Well, for this simple reason that I'm anxious to explain the law of God to which we submit when we submit to the yoke of Christ. The law of God is not alien to our human nature. On the contrary, it exactly corresponds to it. Listen to this remarkable thing which the Apostle Paul wrote to the romans in chapter 2, verses 14 and 15. Listen carefully. Gentiles who don't know the law sometimes do by nature what the law requires. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts. What an extraordinary statement this is. This is not, of course, a reference to the new birth, this writing on their hearts. The law is not written on pagan hearts in the same way that it's written on Christian hearts. No, by the new creation, it is written on the heart of a Christian in the sense that he's given an understanding of God's law and given a love for it and desires to obey it. But by the original creation, the law of God is written on every human heart in the sense that the true nature of man, as God made him in his own image, finds its fulfillment in obedience to God's law and not in disobedience. God knows our nature. God's moral law is not an arbitrary law. It's the expression of his own nature, and it's perfectly adapted to our human nature. For God made both us and the law, and the one is adapted to the other. Now that means that whenever we disobey God's law, we not only disobey God, we deny our true self. We're behaving like an animal, not a human. Obedience, you see, is not just Christian, it's human. It's behaving as God meant man to behave from the beginning of human history. I do not hesitate to say that the Christian life lived under the yoke of Christ is the only truly human existence there is. And anything else in the way of disobedience is sub human. That, then is why Christ's yoke is easy. It fits. It's not a foreign imposition. It's not like the massive armor that the boy David tried to put on and then had to put aside because he couldn't wear it. The law of God is adapted to man's true nature. The yoke of Christ is custom built and tailor made. And he who submits to it finds rest unto his soul. Let me give you an illustration. With every complicated gadget which we buy nowadays, whether it's a car or a camera or a kitchen mixer or an electric razor or dishwasher, with every complicated gadget we buy, we get with it a leaflet of instructions. And this is necessary because the person who knows best how anything works is its manufacturer. Just so. The only person who knows how man works, the only person who knows how man will be himself and fulfill himself is God, man's creator. And the Bible is his book of instructions. So the first reason why Christ's yoke is easy is that his law, God's law fits our nature. The first reason why we don't need to be afraid of Christ's yoke is that it's easy, it fits us. But secondly, Christ's character is gentle. Surely we know this, don't we? Can't you see Christ laying His hand in tender blessing on little children? Can't you see him dealing gently with the woman taken in adultery? Healing the sick, cleansing the leper, comforting the sad? Can't you see him dying for sinners in his mercy on the cross? How then is it that you cannot trust Him? The will of Jesus Christ is good, acceptable and perfect. He would never lay upon us a yoke that was not for our greater good. His character is gentle. Every time we disobey Christ and throw off his yoke, we're casting a slur on his character. We're maligning either his wisdom or his goodness. In effect, we're saying either that he doesn't know what is best for us, or requiring things that are contrary to our nature, or that he does know what is best. But being cruel wants to impose something harmful upon us. But this is intolerable. It's exactly what Satan wants us to believe. And ever since the Garden of Eden, the devil has been casting aspersions on the wisdom and the benevolence of God. Has God said, God knows that when you eat your eyes will be opened and you will become like God. In other words, Satan is insinuating that God is denying something for our good. But you don't believe the devil, do you? I earnestly hope that you don't. It's necessary to resist the devil. And when he whispers this kind of thing into our ear, you then, who shrink from the yoke of Christ. What sort of a Christ do you believe in? Evidently not the true Christ. The devil must be persuading you that he is a cruel tyrant, an oppressor, an ogre whose yoke and burden are too heavy to bear. I say to you again, resist the devil. Rebut his accusations. Round on him and say to him it's not true. Christ's yoke is easy and he is gentle in heart. Let me then conclude the voice of Jesus Christ echoes down the centuries even to today. Can you hear him? Listen, Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me who will accept his invitation and obey. Not that it's something you can settle once and for all. Just as the Christian takes up the cross and follows Christ every day, so we must take his yoke upon us every day. But we've got to make a start sometimes. Have you a quarrel with Christ that you need to settle? Or some rebellion in your heart you need to confess? Or is there a resistance you need to bring to an end? Listen to Christ's reassurances. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. I am gentle and lowly in heart. You will find rest unto your souls. What more do you need to reassure you? It's the easy yoke of a gentle master. You've no reason to be afraid of it and no excuse for resisting it. So then come. Come to Christ. Let him place his yoke upon you. Don't be afraid. Don't struggle, but don't resist. Submit, and in this submission you will find freedom in this yoke. Rest.
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You've been listening to John Stott. Listen to faith of Our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.