Unmistakably Free | Sermon | The Grove Church, Port St. Lucie

How to Find the Only Yoke That Sets You Free

Yoked to Christ and unmistakably free.

Summary

Galatians 5:1–6 makes an unexpected claim about freedom: the problem was never that a person is carrying a yoke, because everyone is carrying one; the problem is what the yoke is attached to. Preaching at The Grove Church in Port St. Lucie, Florida, David Hancock traces Paul's warning to a church that had begun adding law-keeping to faith, and shows that the law has no power to pull anyone toward the good life; it only adds weight, and a single failure under it is enough to hold a person where he stands. The freedom Christ gives is the standing of a son, with an inheritance of land, people, and blessing that no one earns. Freedom is not found by throwing off every yoke, but by taking up the yoke of Christ, who does the work of carrying you to the life you were made for.

Key Takeaways

Freedom in Galatians 5 is the standing of a royal son of God, carrying an inheritance of land, people, and blessing that is given rather than earned.
When Paul says circumcision and uncircumcision count for nothing, he is speaking about power, not worth; the law cannot move anyone toward the destination it describes.
Taking up law-keeping as the path to freedom obligates a person to keep the whole law, where one failure becomes a weight heavy enough to stop him where he stands.
Christ offers His own yoke instead and carries the load Himself, so faith rests on His power rather than on the strength of a person's believing.

Read Galatians 5:1–6 (ESV)

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

Talk about it

1. Think of a rule you have kept for years, whether it came from your family, your work, or your faith. What have you been expecting it to give you?

The Freedom You Were Made For: What Does It Mean to Be Free in Christ?

Paul does not ease into it. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” he writes, doubling the word in a way that reads strangely in English. It’s called a Hebraic idiom of intensification. Paul doubles the word freedom, and the way he says it lands with the force of underlining it three times over. The freedom he means is a specific thing, not a mood. It is everything he has been building toward for four chapters: the standing of a royal son of God, and the inheritance that comes with it.

A son inherits land, and the land in view is better than Eden, because it is a kingdom that cannot be lost. A son inherits blessing, which turns out to be God Himself; the Spirit of the Son placed inside a person, the Father in heaven now his own Father, and the joy, peace, and love that belong to God’s own life made at home in him. A son inherits a people, a family of others joined to Christ and learning to live in that same joy together. And a son stands without guilt or shame, seen by the Father the way the Father sees His only Son Christ. Verse 5 adds the hope of righteousness, a picture of the future in which he is not merely counted righteous on paper but declared righteous in front of all creation, finally living as the person he was always made to be. That is the freedom on the table.

KEY PHRASE: FOR FREEDOM CHRIST HAS SET US FREE
Galatians 5:1 opens, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” and the doubling is deliberate. Hebrew and Aramaic speakers intensified an idea by repeating its root, the way Jesus says “with desire I have desired” before the Last Supper; English would use italics. Paul is not naming one benefit among many; he is saying that freedom is the whole point of what Christ has done.

Talk about it

2. Freedom in this passage means being seen by the Father the way He sees His own Son, with no guilt and no shame. Where are you still living as though God is reviewing your record? Name the specific failure you assume He is holding.

The Yoke You Did Not Notice: What Is a Yoke of Slavery?

The Galatians had been standing in that freedom and were handing it back. Traveling teachers had persuaded them that if they wanted to be truly free they needed to add the law to their faith, beginning with circumcision. Paul’s response is severe. Take up the law as the means of your freedom and you have put on a yoke of slavery; and once that yoke is on, you are obligated to keep all of the law, all of the time, without exception. There is no curve. One failure becomes a weight heavy enough to hold a person exactly where he stands.

The problem was never that the law is bad. Paul calls it good, and he later has Timothy circumcised for the sake of the mission. The problem is asking the law to carry you somewhere it has no power to take you. That instinct is not limited to religion. Some people yoke themselves to obedience and expect the good life as payment. Some yoke themselves to family, either to a family code that must be kept in order to stay accepted, or to the idea that a spouse and children will finally deliver the life they are after. Some yoke themselves to a career, whose law is produce and perform, and discover that no amount of success feels like freedom. And some yoke themselves to freedom itself, rejecting anything that looks like a rule or a claim on them, until love, family, work, and home all begin to look like threats, and they end up alone and confused about what went wrong.

KEY WORD: YOKE
A yoke is the wooden crossbar a farmer lays over the necks of two oxen so the animals pull a load together. In ancient Jewish teaching, taking the law as your yoke was a phrase of honor; it meant binding yourself to the commands of God. Paul reverses the honor in Galatians 5:1 and calls it a yoke of slavery, because a partner with no power to pull becomes the load.

KEY WORD: CIRCUMCISION
Circumcision was the physical mark of belonging to God’s covenant people, given to Abraham in Genesis 17 and practiced by Israel ever after. Paul does not object to the practice; he objects to treating it as the price of acceptance. To receive it as the means of being made right with God is to take on the whole law as a debt, and to lose the advantage of Christ altogether.

Talk about it

3. The sermon names four yokes: obedience, family, career, and freedom itself. Which one are you actually wearing? Say what it has promised you and what it has cost you so far.

The Law Has No Legs: Why Can Following the Rules Not Make You Free?

Paul’s answer is not a better effort but a different partner. In Christ alone a person is free to inherit the kingdom, free to know God as a Father who has made His home in him, free to live among a people without gossip, slander, and jealousy, free to rest in the fact that his sin has been dealt with and there is now no condemnation, and free to look ahead to a day when heaven says out loud that he is righteous. None of it arrives through the law.

Verse 6 says circumcision and uncircumcision count for nothing, and count there is a word about power rather than worth. It means the law has no power to move anyone toward the destination. Picture yourself under a yoke with the law beside you; you are doing all the pulling, and your partner is a boulder with a chain running from it to your neck. So Paul points to something else, faith working through love, and Jesus offers the same exchange plainly in Matthew 11. Lay down the yoke that is breaking you, take His instead, and He will do the work. Some days He teaches you to walk beside Him; other days He carries you; either way you arrive.

KEY PHRASE: FAITH WORKING THROUGH LOVE
Galatians 5:6 ends with the phrase “faith working through love,” and it has been read two ways for centuries. Most modern commentators take it to mean that real faith produces love in a person’s life. Greek-speaking church fathers writing before 400 AD read it the other direction: the love of God, once seen and understood, produces faith. Either way, both are true; seeing the love of Christ creates faith, and that faith goes on making love.

MATTHEW 11:28–30
“Come to me, all 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.”
Jesus does not offer a life with no yoke; He offers a different one, with Himself under it. The rest He promises is not the absence of work but the presence of someone strong enough to pull.

Talk about it

4. The law has no legs; it cannot pull you anywhere. What have you been asking to pull for you that has no power to do it, and how long have you been waiting for it to work?

The Cost You Did Not Expect: What Does It Cost to Yoke Yourself to Christ?

The exchange sounds gentle until a person actually tries it. Yoking yourself to Christ costs more than laying down the wrong you have done; it costs you the good you have done. Everyone keeps a short list in reserve as evidence: the sacrifices, the service, the years of faithfulness, the moments of behaving better than they wanted to. Hold one of them up to God as proof that He should accept you, and the bargaining with the law has started again; and once it starts, every part of the law you have not kept comes with it.

Paul’s words are blunt. A person who would be justified by the law is severed from Christ. Two kinds of people are in danger here. The first never understood grace at all, spent a lifetime in church, and assumed Christianity was rule-keeping. The second is a Christian who has slipped back into thinking like a slave, still a son but living in fear, wondering what God thinks of him, driven by shame instead of grace, with full access to joy and peace and almost no experience of either. The only thing worth holding up is Christ, and He is enough, because He alone has the power to bring a person all the way to the end.

THE PRACTICAL TEST
Ask what you would name if God asked why He should accept you. If the answer contains anything you have done, whether church attendance, generosity, sobriety, or years of trying, the law is back on your shoulders and the whole of it comes with it. If the answer is Christ and nothing else, the weight is off. The test is not whether you feel free; it is what you reach for when your standing is questioned.

THE SERMON’S ILLUSTRATION
In The Lion King, Simba is the king’s son, heir to the land, the people, and the blessing, until his uncle kills his father and convinces him it was his fault. Simba runs from the guilt and adopts a philosophy of no worries and no responsibility, which looks like freedom and is actually exile. He goes home only after he is shown his own reflection and told that he is his father’s son. The Galatians had the same problem; they were sons who had forgotten whose they were.

Talk about it

5. The hardest thing to lay down is not your sin but your good record. What is the one good thing about yourself you would want God to notice, and what does holding it up protect you from admitting?

The Young Ox: What Does Walking with Christ Actually Feel Like?

Walking with Christ is learned, not instant. A missionary in a remote South American village once watched a farmer break in a young ox by yoking it beside an older, experienced one and sending them off toward the jungle. The young animal planted its feet and fought the wood, and its neck must have been screaming; the older ox simply stopped and waited until it settled. A step later the same thing happened, and the older ox absorbed the strain again. This went on into the night while the farmer watched. By morning the two were moving together with ease, the young one matching the older one’s pace, and the yoke sat comfortably on both.

That is the Christian life described more honestly than most descriptions of it. A person takes the yoke and then spends years fighting the pace, straining after a freedom that was never freedom, and Christ never lets go. The daily work is learning to see who is beside you, carrying the weight of sin, guilt, shame, sorrow, and fear, and then to stop fighting Him about it.

Talk about it

6. The young ox fought the yoke all night before it learned the older ox’s pace. What are you carrying right now that is keeping you a slave, and where are you still fighting the pace Christ has set?

The Heart of It: What Did Christ Carry to Set You Free?

Christ is the Son who was always free, at home in the good land with the Father, full of the joy and peace and love that are God’s own life. He did not stay there. He came out to slaves who were far off, found them, and put Himself under their yoke. On the cross He carried the full weight of their sin, their guilt, their shame; and though He was the Son, He felt what it is to be a slave cut off from His Father, cut off in some way from the land, the people, and the blessing. When He breathed His last, He was yoked into death itself. There He broke the yoke, bound Himself to His people, and the Father raised Him and brought them out with Him, unmistakably free. Freedom was not achieved; it was handed over. The only work left is to stop pulling against the One who is doing the pulling.

Talk about it

7. Christ went into death yoked to your sin so that you would come out of it free, and He did it before you asked. Which is harder for you to accept, that He carried it, or that nothing is left for you to carry? Why?

Questions This Sermon Answers

What does Galatians 5:1 mean?

Galatians 5:1 opens, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” and the doubling is deliberate. Hebrew and Aramaic speakers intensified an idea by repeating its root, the way Jesus says “with desire I have desired” before the Last Supper; English would use italics. Paul is not naming one benefit among many; he is saying that freedom is the whole point of what Christ has done.

What is a yoke of slavery in the Bible?

A yoke is the wooden crossbar a farmer lays over the necks of two oxen so the animals pull a load together. In ancient Jewish teaching, taking the law as your yoke was a phrase of honor; it meant binding yourself to the commands of God. Paul reverses the honor in Galatians 5:1 and calls it a yoke of slavery, because a partner with no power to pull becomes the load.

Why does Paul talk about circumcision in Galatians 5?

Circumcision was the physical mark of belonging to God's covenant people, given to Abraham in Genesis 17 and practiced by Israel ever after. Paul does not object to the practice; he objects to treating it as the price of acceptance. To receive it as the means of being made right with God is to take on the whole law as a debt, and to lose the advantage of Christ altogether.

What does “faith working through love” mean in Galatians 5:6?

Galatians 5:6 ends with the phrase “faith working through love,” and it has been read two ways for centuries. Most modern commentators take it to mean that real faith produces love in a person's life. Greek-speaking church fathers writing before 400 AD read it the other direction: the love of God, once seen and understood, produces faith. Either way, both are true; seeing the love of Christ creates faith, and that faith goes on making love.

What does it mean to be severed from Christ and to fall away from grace?

Paul's phrase describes two kinds of people. The first never understood grace at all; they spent a lifetime in church assuming Christianity was rule-keeping, and so they heard grace without ever holding it. The second are Christians who have slipped back into thinking like slaves, still sons but living in fear and shame, with full access to joy and peace and almost no experience of either.

Vision for the Christian Life

The Christian life this passage envisions is not a life with no yoke; it is a life spent beside Christ, learning His pace. It is a freedom that has stopped proving itself and stopped keeping score, and it lets Him carry what was never possible to carry alone. Sons and daughters who live this way are not careless about obedience; they are simply finished using it as currency, because the land, the people, and the blessing were handed to them before they lifted a finger. Stand free. Walk with Him; He will bring you the rest of the way.

Discussion Questions for Small Groups: Galatians 5

Think of a rule you have kept for years, whether it came from your family, your work, or your faith. What have you been expecting it to give you?
Freedom in this passage means being seen by the Father the way He sees His own Son, with no guilt and no shame. Where are you still living as though God is reviewing your record? Name the specific failure you assume He is holding.
The sermon names four yokes: obedience, family, career, and freedom itself. Which one are you actually wearing? Say what it has promised you and what it has cost you so far.
The law has no legs; it cannot pull you anywhere. What have you been asking to pull for you that has no power to do it, and how long have you been waiting for it to work?
The hardest thing to lay down is not your sin but your good record. What is the one good thing about yourself you would want God to notice, and what does holding it up protect you from admitting?
The young ox fought the yoke all night before it learned the older ox’s pace. What are you carrying right now that is keeping you a slave, and where are you still fighting the pace Christ has set?
Christ went into death yoked to your sin so that you would come out of it free, and He did it before you asked. Which is harder for you to accept, that He carried it, or that nothing is left for you to carry? Why?

Related Messages in This Series

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Pastor David Hancock is the Lead Pastor of The Grove Church in Port St. Lucie, FL, a church where believers and skeptics wrestle honestly with faith and doubt.

Wrestling with a question this raised? You can text in your question on any Sunday and hear it answered after the sermon. Or come sit with people asking the same things. Plan Your Visit

Read the full sermon manuscript

We are all chasing freedom. Seeking to break away from whatever is holding us down or keeping us back. But do we understand just how free we are made to be? Some of us think we are free but as our verses reveal we have submitted to a yoke of slavery. Today we discovery that true freedom isn’t found by removing the yoke altogether, but by finding the right thing or the right one to yoke yourself to. We are in our series called Christian freedom and our aim today is that you would walk out of here unmistakably free.

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:1–6, ESV)

Paul says for freedom Christ has set us free. It’s a strange statement. It almost sounds like Paul is saying for the sake of freedom, Christ has set us free. That’s not it. The Bible speaks phrases like this a lot. For example, Jesus says, “with desire I have desired.” It’s called a Hebraic idiom of intensification.

Paul doubles the word freedom, and the way he says it lands with the force of underlining it three times over.

What Paul means call for you today is to be unmistakably free.

What does this unmistakable freedom look like?

Freedom is a noun, it’s referring to The specific Freedom paul has been talking about for four chapters. Everything has been leading up to this moment, the explosive climax of the whole book: what unmistakable freedom is.

Here is how we should hear this statement: Christ has set us free to stand in the freedom of a royal son of God with the inheritance of the land, people, and blessing that comes with sonship.

A son inherits the land; this is the promised land of Eden, but something even better: an Eden that can’t be lost- the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven- already secured for you; you are just waiting to stand in it in full.

A son inherits the blessing. By faith you have been united to Christ, the Father and the Spirit. In John 14, Jesus describes this union as manifesting Himself in you, so the Spirit of the Son is in you, and the Father in Heaven is now your Father. You have attained the blessing of joy, peace, and love because God is joy, peace, and love; and God has made His Home in you. And the very Spirit of the Son God in you, guiding you by a spiritual instinct, and more than that…

A son inherits a people a family. You look around and see a family of friends that are united to Christ with you. A union of joy, peace, and love among man. All together in the house of God, while all at the same time God has made His Home in us.

In all of this, you stand, without guilt and shame, justified in the eyes of God, seen as the Father sees the one and only son. Our sin, that dirty word the world hates, is actually finally gotten rid of. The world hates this word, yet in naming it, Christianity becomes the only way to get rid of it and cast it as far as the east is from the west.

Our verse adds the hope of righteousness in verse 5, which is a picture of you in the future, not just seen as perfectly righteousness with a perfect record, but declared perfect by God in the eyes of all the world to see that you really are a righteous son of God, and more than that, you have finally lived into that perfect righteousness and have become who you were always made to be. Finally complete forever.

That is freedom!

The Galatian church stood unmistakably free, but have or are in danger of submitting again to a yoke of slavery.

What happened? Why in the world would anyone leave this free life behind?

They were tricked. Tricked into yoking themselves to the law. A group of traveling false teachers came in and convinced them that if they want to be free, they must yoke themselves to the law.

Specifically Paul mentions circumcised. I know it sounds a little strange for us today, but it’s a practice that goes all the way back to Abraham, and it was the mark that you were part of God’s chosen people.

Paul says, if you practice circumcision as a means to your freedom, you have put on a yoke of slavery. Now, the problem isn’t circumcision, Paul would later have Timothy circumcised for the purpose of fitting in for the sake of spreading Christianity. The problem here is that circumcision is seen as the means to attaining freedom. The clearest way I can say it is they are using the law, following the rules to attain freedom, but Paul insists that by yoking themselves to the law they are slaves again, or are about to be.

Now what’s a yoke? It’s a wooden bar farmers would use to join two oxen together to share the load.

Think here of you walking and the law walking with you, you are yoked together and you are depending on the law to walk with you and help you reach your destination.

In ancient rabbinic or Jewish thought, taking the law as a yoke was a term of honor. Paul takes this term of honor and reverses it as a yoke of slavery.

His argument is the law, can’t get you to the destination of freedom. The law has no legs you could say, it doesn’t help you but drags you down.

Paul intensifies the image and says that if you take up the yoke of law-keeping, you must keep all of it; fail in one area, and the weight is too much to carry.

There is no curve when you carry the law. The whole law means all of it, all of the time, 100%. One failure, and it becomes an unbearable weight that imprisons you where you stand.

One failure becomes so heavy it makes you a slave. Chained to its weight, unable to move forward into everything God has made you for.

Now, there are different yokes we all carry, Paul’s focus is on the law of God, but we all have yokes of different kinds that we think will set us free.

1st we have what Paul is taking about. Obedience as the currency that secures freedom. We think if we follow the laws, obey the rules, some god will give us the freedom of the good life. Paul reveals one failure will imprison you from true freedom.

2nd, we have the law of our family. We yoke ourselves to our family hoping our family can give us the freedom we seek. Sometimes that’s law keeping in the family.Keep the family code and you will be accepted and welcomed. If you don’t keep it you will feel guilt and shame all your life. For others it’s just having a family is the good life that will set you free. If you can find a spouse and have some kids you will be unmistakably free. Yoke yourself to your family or an idea of a family and you are submitting to a yoke of slavery. Your family doesn’t have the means to get you to the truly good life, if you think they do, you might have so small of an idea of the abundant life you are made for.

3rd your career. You yoke yourself to your career and it’s law says, produce, perform, and you will have currency. Follow the yoke of your career enough and you will find the good life of success. But no amount of success will make you feel free.

4th is the trickiest one. The law of Freedom. Anything that looks like it will threaten your freedom you reject. Rules are against the rules. Any system of religion is a threat to freedom, so it must be immediately rejected and called controlling. Run in this life long enough and you will find out love, family, children, jobs, houses, all become a threat to freedom, so you run from it all and find yourself unhappy, lonely, and confused about what went wrong.

This is the story of the Lion King. Simba is the king’s son. He is set to inherit the good land, the people, and the blessing of the good life in the land. Simba just can’t wait. He is ready to take responsibility and become the king, at least he thinks he is, until Simba’s uncle Scar throws Simba’s father, the king, off a cliff and convinces Simba it is his fault his father is dead. Simba runs as far from the pride land as he can, from the guilt and shame and adopts the thinking of Hakuna Matata. No worries, no problems, just freedom in paradise. No responsibilities. Forget who you are.

The Galatians have forgotten who they are. They are royal sons, and sons don’t earn the inheritance by keeping the law; they are given the inheritance, the land, the people, and the blessing because of who they are.

I want you to think of two types of people that Paul could be talking to:

The 1st is those who never understood grace; the law was always their path. They spent all their life in the Christian church and thought Christianity was about keeping the rules. Paul says, they are severed from Christ, having heard grace but never holding it because they didn’t understand that Christianity is a gift, an inheritance by grace, not law-keeping.

The 2nd type are those who are Christians, but have fallen back into slavery in their thinking. They are still sons but acting like slaves. They tasted love, joy, peace, grace, and assurance, but now they are falling back into fear, anxiety, wondering what God thinks of them. To many Christians are driven by shame, not grace. They have fallen from grace. For them, it means they have all the access to joy, peace, and love but experience none of it, severed from the practical daily benefits of Christ.

Sons acting like slaves.

Will they return to freedom? What is the path back?

In vs. 1 Paul is insisting that Christ alone sets us free.

In Christ alone you are Free to enjoy the inheritance of the land of Eden the kingdom of God,

In Christ alone you are free to enjoy the blessings of a relationship with God where he manifests himself in us and we experience the joy, peace, and love of God.

In Christ you are free to live among the people of the church with unity in Christ, a place without gossip, slander, jealousy, expressing the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Forgiving each other as you have been forgiven.

In Christ you are free to rest in the fact that your sin has been dealt with; there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

In Christ alone you are freed to know that in the future, the Heavens will ring out in front of all that you are righteous, good, a citizen of heaven, and you will stand radiant, glowing, gloriously complete, shining the light of the glory of God upon your face. Free forever in His glory.

This all happens in Christ not by following the law.

Vs. 6 says circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for nothing.

Counts is a power word, not a value word. To count for nothing means it has no power to get you to the destination.

Meaning this. Imagine you, like an ox, carrying a yoke, and beside you under the same yoke is the law. The law has no power; you are doing all the work. In Fact, the law becomes a burden that holds you down. It’s heavy and can’t help you reach your destination.

In other words, faith in the law doesn’t count. It’s in vain. Powerless to help you reach freedom.

It’s not that the law is evil; it’s good and beautiful but powerless to help you reach the destination. It’s a huge boulder with an iron hook coming out of it, and you have chained yourself to it.

That is what reliance on the law looks like.

Instead, yoke yourself to Christ. How?

Vs. 6 teaches by “faith, working through love.”

Today, this phrase is often thought to mean that our faith produces love in our lives. Most commentary you find will say that. But if you went to a Greek Orthodox church, you would hear them say this verse means God’s love that produces faith.

Both are true, but what is our verse saying?

Here is where the confusion started. if you will get scholarly with me for a moment. Before 400 ad. We see commentary from some of the early church fathers (theologians back in those day) and they saw this verse as meaning love that produces faith. But when the Greek New Testament got translated into Latin, the translators interpreted it to sound more like faith producing love. But in Greek, it probably sounds more like the love of God, when seen, known, and understood, produces faith.

Now both are true, so you could simply take the best of both and say:

When we see the love of Christ, we have faith, and that faith produces love in us and out of us, producing a community of love.

Either way, the point is, faith in Christ sets us free, while faith in the law makes us slaves. What does faith in Christ look like?

Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all 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.”

Jesus is saying that while the law will enslave you and keep you from reaching your destination. If you put your faith in me, with the yoke around me neck and yours, I’ll do the work. I’ll make it easy and light. I’ll get you to freedom.

I’ll give your souls rest.

I’ve come here for people just like you, sinners yoked by the law, slaves to its weight.

Unburden yourself and take my yoke.

Once you do, you walk with Him. He does all the work; sometimes he teaches you to walk with Him, and other times he carries you, but what is sure is that you will get to the destination.

That is faith.

And as soon as you yoke yourself to Him, you become a son with Him.

In the Lion King, while Simba is far from home, he meets the wise mentor who knew his father.

He says, “Your father is still alive; I’ll take you to Him.” Simba rushes to follow Him.

He takes Him before a pool of water tells him to look down and see. He sees His own reflection. In other words, you are your father’s son. Remember who you are. He is in you; you are in him.

As soon as Simba remembers, he returns and claims back the land and the people, and together they fight for the good life and attain it.

This is what all of us must do. Remember who you are.

Remember whose you are, and then with Christ beside you, doing the hard work, you will reach the land, the people, and the blessing.

Here is the challenge laid before you. Yoking yourself to Christ is much harder than it sounds.

The cost to take up his yoke is to lay down not just all the bad things you have done but all the good things you have done. You want them to count for something. But as soon as you do, you also hold up all the other things you have done.

That’s yoking yourself to the law again.

When you hold up just one great thing you have done as proof that God should love you, accept you, and give you the inheritance, and make you a free son, you then must accept the whole law as your yoke.

In other words: If you say God loves me because I did this good thing, you are bargaining with the law, and any part you haven’t kept becomes the weight of the world that keeps you from the inheritance.

But more than that, hold up one thing you have done as proof you should be a son and you are severed from Christ and yoked to the law.

Hold up to Christ as proof to the Father that you are a son. He counts for everything. Meaning He has the power to get you everything you desire in your heart.

The land, people, blessing, the freedom from guilt and shame.

He will succeed in bringing you to completion, to the judgment hall, where, in front of all creation, you are declared a perfectly righteous royal son or daughter of God, and all creation and the angels will cheer for you and what God has done in you and through you.

What does it look like to yoke yourself to Christ? What is the walking like?

A missionary in a remote South American village watched a farmer train a young ox one evening.

The farmer put the yoke on an older, more experienced ox, yoked them together, and they set off for the jungle.

The young ox planted its feet and writhed against the wood. This is just what we do with Christ.

Its neck was probably screaming in pain, and the older ox quietly stopped and waited for the younger ox to calm down. Another step and the same thing happened. Now the older ox felt the weight of the wrestling against the yoke, wanting it’s false freedom.

Again and again this continued, and the farmer just watched.

The missionary went to sleep and, in the morning, both were moving together with ease. The younger ox now matching the older ox’s pace. The yoke was now comfortable for both.

This is us. We put the yoke around Christ for the 1st time, and we don’t yet now how to follow His lead. But over time, and with much patience on Christ’s part, we learn to follow His lead.

He won’t let you go, once you share His yoke. But every day, you must learn to see Him beside you, carrying the weight of sin, guilt, and shame, the weight of the pressures of this world, the weight of sorrow, fear, and suffering.

Don’t fight Him on it. submit to Him, surrender to Him and He will carry you to freedom.

What are you carrying right now that is keeping you a slave?

He has come to carry it.

Christ is the truly free Son; Full of joy, peace, and love. He is in the good land with the Father, blessed in the joy, peace, and love of the trinity, His people.

Yet He came to us who were far off slaves.

He finds us and yokes Himself to us, and on the cross bears the full weight of our sin, our shame, our guilt.

Though He is son, he felt the full weight of being a slave away from the Father.

In some way cut off from the land, people, and blessing.

We rocked and reeled in our sin, and he felt the pain of it all.

And when He breathed His last on the cross, He was yoked into death.

There He broke the yoke; yoked Himself to you, and the Father raised Him from the dead, bringing us out with Him, now unmistakably free.

Stand free my friends. Yoke yourself to Him, and He will bring you into the freedom you are made for.