We all carry burdens—regret, fear, shame, performance, and the endless pressure to measure up. But Jesus offers something radically different. Recorded during a recent family conference, this session examines Jesus' invitation to weary souls, blending biblical truth with heartfelt real-life illustrations.

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Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.

I praise God, folks.

Listen.

We ought to all praise God that He offers us a redeemed rest.

And we see this and I want you to turn your Bible.

We see this in Matthew chapter 11 in verse 28 through verse 30.

So I want to look at those verses and take a few minutes on that as we kind of close this and bring this all together.

So look at Matthew, chapter 11, verse 28 through verse 30.

This is a very, very familiar passage, but I want to try to just bring some real insight from that passage.

I've been meditating on this passage for the last month and a half and it's a powerful, powerful word.

Folks, listen as I read this.

This is one of the great mountain peaks in Scripture.

This is one of the great, greatest invitations ever given in the Word of God.

So look at it with me.

Jesus says, come unto me all ye that labor.

That word labor can mean also who are very weary and are heavy laden or overly burdened.

And I will give you.

Here's that word, rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.

For I am meek and lowly in heart.

And ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

So as we look at this, we see the first thing that Jesus says.

He says, come unto me or come to me.

What an invitation Jesus is giving.

But who is he giving the invitation to, we might ask?

He tells us that when he says all ye that labor and are heavy laden.

Now the people that he's talking to here when he gives this invitation are people who are searching for relief from the crushing load of their sin and their shame.

There are people who are striving in their own strength and works to be accepted by God.

And in that day and time, you need to understand the Pharisees of Jesus time pressured and controlled people with guilt trips at their failure to not just keep the law, but all the almost 300 additional laws they added onto the law to keep all these rules, all these regulations, and people were expected to keep them.

And these people were exhausted their inability to meet all these expectations of the Pharisees, the law of God, but also about 300 more laws.

These were people, listen folks who were hopelessly striving.

They were striving to earn rest and peace.

People who realize they cannot achieve this, and because they know they can't achieve it, they're desperate.

So what do these people need?

When Jesus gives his invitation, come unto me.

And these people are bound under this heavy burden of the law.

What do these people need?

They need, and I'm going to give you a word here.

Hope.

And a lot of times you're in a situation and you can't see your way out of that.

And the one thing you need is hope.

And they desperately need that.

They need to be rescued.

Leaders listen from their futility of trying to earn their own acceptance.

Jesus is saying, come to me.

This is something you cannot do in your own efforts.

I will rescue you.

I will give you the hope and the rest that you're desperately striving and looking for.

But how will they find their hope in him?

Well, he tells us that too.

He says, you'll find relief and rest by taking my yoke upon you.

Now, Jesus differentiates himself at this point from religion with its yoke of heavy burdens, of rules and regulations by saying to them, take on my yoke.

Take on me.

I will do for you what is impossible for you to do for yourself.

We might ask, well, I don't know, what is his yoke?

Are you saying, I'm going to take this yoke and I'm going to switch to another yoke?

You know, what is this yoke?

We know in scripture, Jesus says that all the law is perfected or fulfilled in him.

He fulfilled the law for us.

We don't have to fulfill the law.

He did it in our place.

It reminds me of the story of the rich young ruler when he came to Jesus and he said, what must I do in order to inherit eternal life?

He's still trying to earn his salvation.

Jesus, what can I do?

And the answer is, you can do nothing.

Nothing you can do.

And Jesus is trying to say, listen, their yoke is all about the law and trying to keep all these rules and regulations.

And you can't do that.

That's why I came.

Cause I can and I did my yoke in that day, a yoke was a wooden frame placed across the back of oxen and very strong animals, joining them together into submitting to a heavy load.

In fact, they would take the oxen, bring them in, and carpenters would cut the wooden yoke to fit those oxen perfectly so it wouldn't chafe their neck when they pulled the load.

It was a very Heavy load.

Therefore, the Jews were very familiar with this phrase yoke.

And it referred to being in submission to something like the yoke of the law.

And that's what they were told.

They were to submit to the yoke.

And that's what they actually called it, the yoke of the law.

And Jesus is saying, I'm offering you another yoke, not a yoke of the law.

I'm offering you a yoke of grace.

A yoke of grace.

Completely different.

Wow.

Therefore, Jesus, to distinguish himself between the yoke of the Pharisees and the yoke he offered in himself, he says, learn of me.

He says, learn of me.

He says, my yoke is a yoke of submission to my lordship, to my teaching, to my instruction.

But it's not a heavy yoke.

This is not.

You won't submit to it out of duty, you'll do it out of devotion.

Because I've come to take in your place in fulfilling all these laws.

I am your substitute.

It's a yoke that implies trusting in him to the degree that we are willing to obey Him.

That's a big statement that I'm going to trust in you, Jesus.

And when I say I'm going to trust in you, it means I'm willing to obey you.

Listen, folks, and I really believe this true salvation occurs when in our desperation, we turn from the heavy crushing burden of sin to Jesus Christ with a willingness to yield control of our life completely.

To him is realizing and wholeheartedly acknowledging that he has earned our acceptance before God, something that we can not do and can never do, something that he has already done.

For them.

Jesus is getting them to look to the future for us.

We're looking back to the cross.

However, Jesus is saying to us, you cannot take him as Savior and not also take him as Lord.

They're one and the same.

When you take me as Savior, you're taking on my yoke.

You're taking me, you're submitting to my lordship.

At the same time, you're submitting to salvation in me.

Salvation certainly is all of grace, and it's all of God's mercy.

But in order for you to truly respond to the grace of God, there has to be brokenness and a humility, a submission in your heart which causes you to turn from your old life to new life in Christ.

And listen, folks, the legitimacy of us coming or turning to him is indicated by a willingness to submit to his lordship.

That's a big statement, but that's so true.

And to be under Jesus, yoke is.

Listen, folks, it's not a burden, it's a relief.

It's a relief.

It's freedom.

It's delight.

There's freedom found in Christ.

Listen, folks, not to do what we want, but to do what we ought to.

Since by nature we cannot do what we ought.

We are yoked to our own desires, the flesh.

And that path promises a whole lot, but it delivers nothing.

We need somebody.

And that's what Jesus is saying, you need me.

We need Jesus to set us free from our bondage to sin so that we might live in freedom and in obedience to God's will to become the people of God that God designed us to be.

So I would stop right here and say, have you accepted this invitation of salvation that Jesus is giving here, to surrender to him and let him be your yoke and submit to His Lordship in your life?

I pray that you have.

If you haven't, you certainly can do that today.

But the invitation, and this is important to see, the invitation is not only to those, is first and foremost to those who are lost but in need of salvation, but it's also to Christians who are struggling with daily burdens, Christians who are weary, the people majority, I'd assume, if not most all, every person in this building, they're struggling every day with heavy burdens and weariness.

I think all of us agree, we do.

That's what this invitation is for too.

Christians may be confident in their resting place in heaven, but folks I see so many times in the midst of this broken world, rest is totally eluding them.

They find themselves struggling with expectations, hurts, confusion, life difficulties and sin.

The invitation is for ones who have not embraced or fully understood their identity in Him.

So Jesus increases the attractiveness of submitting to his lordship, his yoke.

When he says, learn of me and you will discover that I am.

He uses two words here, two very significant words.

Number one, I'm meek.

Number two, I'm lowly.

The word meek is also translated as gentle.

Jesus is saying, I am not forceful, I'm not oppressing.

My yoke is not a forceful yoke.

My yoke is not a yoke of oppression.

My yoke is not overbearing or demanding.

I love what Dane Ortland says in his wonderful book Gentle and Lowly.

Based on this statement, he describes the gentleness of Christ by saying, Jesus is not trigger happy, not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated.

He is the most understanding person in the universe.

The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger, not a pointed finger, but open arms.

I love that Jesus did not come to condemn us, but to save us from the penalty of sin and from slavery to sin and unreal expectations in our life.

Looking back to the passage, Jesus adds, I am lowly, which means humble.

I am humble.

I come to meet you where you are, at your lowest level, low, at the lowest point in your life.

I am lowly.

I am humble.

You know what I say?

Oops.

What this makes me think is, who wouldn't want to come?

He's going to understand you.

He's not going to degrade you and tear you to pieces.

He's going to understand and wrap his arms around you and he's not going to leave you at those low points.

He's going to direct you and walk with you.

Just who wouldn't want that?

I know some of you are carrying a yoke all by yourself.

You know, you're dragging the burden of a past.

And hey, we all have past.

There's plenty in mind that I'm so grateful I got to get rid of.

But you drag it around and it's so wicked and so shameful that you dare not come and admit it.

And I want to just tell you how bad this is.

I know of a lady married to a very, very godly man, and he very recently passed away, and all she can think about is, why did God take him?

Because my past is so ugly, he should have taken me instead.

And I mean, she is debilitated because all she can think about is how many times she betrayed her godly husband.

I mean, it's just, it's foremost in her mind.

She is repeatedly confessing it to her daughter, saying, you know, not because she wants to get rid of the sinning, but because that sin, sin is controlling her.

And some of you are dragging your past around and it's a yoke.

And what Dane Ortland says in that book, gentle and Lowly, is you don't need to unburden or collect yourself and then come to Jesus.

You know, we get to come as we are because we get to lay those things at the cross.

Any of that sin, we lay it at the cross and it's taken care of, it's cleansed.

Jesus takes it away from us.

And the weight of that sin and that shame, that's what qualifies you to come.

When you can recognize that in your life there's these despicable things, when you can recognize that it qualifies you.

And when you come, he's going to be there.

He's going to meet you at the lowest, lows in your life and he's meeting you with open arms.

He invites the people that are despised, the people that are forsaken that nobody else wants, the people that are abandoned.

And Ortland says the point in saying that Jesus is lowly is to say that he's accessible, we can get to him.

We come as we are.

He gives us himself.

He gives us a new identity.

We become new creatures.

So blessed now.

Jesus concludes by saying, his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

The yoke of the law, the yoke listen of human effort, the yoke of works which we even strive with after we're saved.

To feel like I've got to perform, to be accepted, to be prove myself, I've got to continually prove myself.

The yoke of sin.

All of these things are so, you know, unsurmountably heavy and crushing.

And they all lead to despair, they lead to depression, they lead some people even to suicide.

There's no hope left.

And Jesus is inviting people saying, listen, all you that are, listen, you're weary, you're.

You're heavily burdened.

Come to me and I'll give you rest.

Yoke up with me.

And he ends by saying, my yoke is easy and light word.

Easy is the same word used in Ephesians 4:32.

Be ye, and here's the word kind to one another.

My yoke is easy, My yoke is kind.

His yoke is kind.

Because even when we don't understand folk what's happening in our life, and most of the time we don't understand, why is this happening, God?

Why did you allow this to happen in my life?

We can still be assured that he has our best interest at heart, that all things will work together for good if we trust him in his sovereignty.

So Jesus offers us a yoke that we can carry because he shoulders the load and carries it for us and with us.

Instead of the heavy burden of pride and self, it's a yoke of the lightness, of humility and lowliness.

Instead of living in bondage, we have freedom in Christ as a Christian.

Not a freedom to do what we want to do, but a freedom to do what we ought to do.

Jesus is saying that you'll not find a true listen spiritual rest outside of me.

You will not find rest for your souls outside of me.

I am Jesus, says the Lord of the Sabbath.

In me is where you will find rest.

Rest.

Put on me as your yoke.

I'm going to tell you about some people, some dear friends that were carrying yokes.

I Mean, their lives in a broken world were real.

I just want to describe to you the things going on.

Brittany close, close friend, 39 years old.

Her body had a severely damaged heart.

Severely.

And she suffered in the hospital for months, waiting for a new heart.

She was in pain just months.

She was swelling up.

But during this time, she was plagued with the fear of dying and leaving behind her six young children.

She couldn't even hold her newborn.

I know this is fresh for you people because I have no doubt that Kelly went through these things, too.

I mean, concern, and it's so real.

There were no matches for Brittany's heart.

And she struggled with her burden.

She was yoked to fear the fear of the what ifs.

What if I don't get a heart?

What if?

And what's going to happen to my children?

And how is my husband going to handle this?

Listen, her husband was amazing.

He comes right alongside of her and he encourages her and tries to help her.

But the thoughts, the voices in her head were so, so strong.

I mean, she knew truth.

Every day.

She was writing out the psalms.

That's what she did every day.

And she knew it.

She knew.

But it was just so hard to find that rest.

And she found out what she had to do every single day is she had to take control of her thought life and concentrate on the truth about her identity in Christ to realize, he's got this.

He's sovereign.

He's only doing things that are for my good.

And I want to report to you, she got her new heart and she's doing amazing.

But it's still a struggle.

The voices are still there.

The battle is still there.

And she still has to do the same thing to get out of it, to take control of her thoughts, to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Now we got Molly.

She's a mother of four young children, one of which is severely handicapped, and she loves every one of her children dearly.

But she's laden with this guilt because she feels the healthy children are neglected.

There's not enough of her to go around.

These are the burdens.

These are very real, real burdens going on in people's lives.

Mindy, her job places this impossible caseload on her.

It has unreasonable deadlines, government deadlines, you know, for the paperwork.

She can't do her job because the paperwork she can't get her.

It's just such pressure, and the stress is negatively impacting her family.

Her husband finds relief in his idol.

His idol is a bottle of alcohol.

He repeatedly loses his job.

So she can't change jobs.

She has to have her job because he repeatedly loses his.

But listen, she's exhausted.

Can y' all relate?

Exhausted.

And pulling that burden on her own strength and abilities is a yoke, and it's breaking her.

But I want to tell you a little about her.

She came to a Bible study, and in that Bible study, we dug deep into the word of God, and she started recognizing things in her life.

And we sat in our living room, and her husband said to her, I can see a change in you.

You're handling things differently.

And what it was, she was learning to give her yoke, to come under that yoke of Jesus and let him carry the burden.

So there's hope.

Let me say there's teenagers.

There's adults.

They bear the burden of.

Of trying to discover their significance.

They want to prove themselves.

They want to prove their significance.

They're yoked to Facebook.

They're yoked to Snapchat.

That's where they want to find their identity.

Let me tell you, young people, this is so dangerous.

And I'm not saying Facebook is wrong.

It can be used for right?

But you've got to be so very careful, because the pursuits of.

Of likes and acceptance is steering them into a path of deeper anxiety because they're not getting what they want.

They want that acceptance.

They want to be cool.

They want to be just a part of the group, but they're finding deeper anxiety.

Did Sam say idols promise to deliver?

But they don't deliver what they promise to.

They deliver more turmoil.

But what's happening is all the Facebook stuff, they can't live up to the posts that they're reading about.

So it's putting pressure on them.

And I want to tell you, research shows there's a direct link between increased suicide in teenagers and the pressures of Facebook.

So it's another.

It's another yoke.

They're yoking to Facebook.

That's not where you want to yoke.

And listen, My final illustration.

It's so common in our counseling that I could attach 10 different names to it, and this breaks my heart.

Some of them are pastors and wives.

Hey, it's not just you.

Pastors and wives struggle with this.

They carry such heavy burdens of hurtful past that for relief, they look to get their acceptance through affairs.

And the pain for their spouse is piercing.

We'll get into counseling sessions, and they blame one another.

They fight right in front of us.

They degrade one another.

You can just feel the 10 intenseness in the air, you know, it's there.

And they have yoked themselves with the task of trying to prove that their spouse's sin is the worst.

It's so much worse than mine.

Yeah, I've sinned, but theirs is worse.

That's a heavy task to prove they can't change the past and they can't see Jesus right now because they're blinded and they're obsessed by their hopelessness.

But I want to tell you, Sam and I have been so absolutely blessed because we've witnessed what the word of God and the truth of who God is and Jesus, the gentleness of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the direction that Jesus gives.

We've been allowed to see change.

We've been allowed to see people truly embrace their real identities, to let go of those that are destroying their lives and to really embrace their identities.

There's hope, and it's all in the person of Jesus.

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