"Freedom Through The Yoke"

(Matthew 11:16-19;25-30)

Rev. Billy D. Strayhorn

INTRODUCTION:

This is Independence Day, so I thought you might enjoy these thoughts from an unknown author that I found in Dynamic Preaching:

Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in America do people order double cheeseburgers, super size fries, and a DIET coke.

Only in America do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

Only in America do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.

Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

Only in America do we use the word "politics" to describe the process so well: "Poli" in Latin meaning "many" and "tics" meaning "blood-sucking creatures." (1)

This is the day that our country declared its freedom from England. It would be seven years later before we actually gained that freedom. It was a long hard struggle filled with great personal sacrifice for many. But the early Americans who fought for our freedom knew the truth of this passage: When we're yoked together in a common purpose, we can pull and pull off more than anyone has ever imagined.

I. YOKED:

A. I remember an old story about a little boy who was out helping dad with the yard work. Dad asked him to pick up the rocks in a certain area of the yard. Dad looked over and saw him struggling to pull pu a huge rock buried in the dirt. The little boy struggled and struggled while Dad watched. Finally, the boy gave up and said, "I can't do it." Dad asked, "Did you use all of your strength?" The little boy looked hurt and said, "Yes, sir. I used every ounce of strength I have." The father smiled and said, "No you didn't .You didn't ask me to help." The father walked over and then the two of them pulled that big rock out of the dirt.

One of the great Biblical truths seems impossible. Liberty comes through being yoked with Christ. Last week we talked about our freedom from slavery to sin. And as paradoxical as it seems, freedom comes through surrendering our self completely to Christ.

B. For some reason, us adults seem to have a hard time with that. The concept seems foreign. But children seem to instinctively understand. Listen to what some children had to say when asked about their understanding of God.

On the matter of inspiration, nine year old Justin writes, "God is like a shooting star because he fires up people's minds." On the issue of providence, six-year-old Joseph states, "God is important to me because he loves me and watches over me and my mom." Rachel, age nine, answers the question of self-esteem with joyful glee. "God is my biggest fan." Regarding devotion and salvation, Elliot, age eight, concludes, "God is my everything. God is the way out of no way." (2)

I love that last one. "God IS the way out of no way." That knowledge and the desire for freedom is what this country was built upon. And we only became a great nation when we were yoked together through freedom and for freedom.

II. YOKED AS A NATION:

The following tribute isn't fully mine, but is adapted from a piece I found in the June, 1985 issue of the Pastor's Story File.

I was born on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. I am the United States of America! The bloodlines of the world run in my veins because I offer freedom to the oppressed. I am 240,000,000 living souls and the ghost of millions who have lived and died for me. A million and more of my countrymen have died for freedom and I am their monument.

My ancestors left their blood on the green at Lexington and in the snow at Valley Forge, on the walls of Fort Sumpter and the fields of Gettysburg, on the walls of the Alamo, on the waters of the river Marne and in the shadows of the Argonne Forest, on the beaches of Salerno and Normandy and the sands of Okinawa, on the bare, bleak hills called Pork Chop and Old Baldy and Heartbreak Ridge. I am the Tet Offensive, Desert Storm, and part of the peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Kosovo.

I am Nathan Hale, Paul Revere and Crispus Attucks. I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard 'round the world. I am Washington, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys, and Davy Crockett. I am Lee and Grant and Lincoln. I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat fields of Kansas and the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal fields of the Virginias and Pennsylvania and the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma. I am the fertile fields of the West, the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Washington Monument and the Viet Nam Memorial.

I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific, three million square miles throbbing with homes, industry and farming. I am farms and ranches; forest and field, mountain, valley and desert. I am quiet villages, small towns and busy cities that never sleep.

I am Friday Night High School football, Major League baseball, little league soccor, and Stanley cup frenzy. I am hot dogs, barbeque and apple pie. I am Pizza, Chinese take out, Southern fried chicken, tossed salad with Russian Dressing, Tex Mex and German Chocolate Cake all on the same buffet table.

You can look at me and see Ben Franklin flying his kite. You can see Betsy Ross with her needle. You can see me in the slaves riding the underground railroad to freedom. You can see the lights of Christmas and hear the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" as the calendar turns. I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am the laughter of a small child as she watches a circus clown's antics. I am the light of triumph in the eyes of a six year old as he reads aloud for the first time. I am schools, colleges and universities.

I am a multitude of churches, synagogues, temples and places of worship where people worship as they think best. I am chief Dan George, Thomas White Wolf, and Jim Thorpe. I am the smile and the tears on the face of the newest citizens being sworn in.

I am Generation X, Boomers, Builders and Millennial Kids. I am insiders, outsiders and even a few upside-downers.

I am a ballot dropped in a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium, and the voice of a choir in a cathedral. I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to a congressman. I am Eli Whitney, Stephen Foster and Dred Scott. I am Tom Edison, Albert Enstein, and the Wright Brothers. I am Horace Greeley, Will Rogers and Barbara Jordan. I am George Washington Carver, Daniel Webster, Jonas Salk and Billy Graham. I am Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, Thomas Paine and Maya Angelou. I am Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King Jr. I am Caesar Chavez, Jaime Escalante and Ellen Ochoa.

I am Juan Gonzalez, Billie Jean King, Tiger Woods, Richard Petty, Michael Jordan, Cheryl Swoopes and Eddie Balfour.

I am Cinqo De Mayo, Juneteenth, Bastille Day, Emancipation Proclamation Day, and Passover all rolled into one. I am every Independance Day ever celebrated.

Yes, I am the nation and these are the things I am. I was conceived in freedom, and God willing, in freedom I will spend the rest of my days. May I always possess the integrity, the courage and the strength to remain unshackled, to remain a citidel of freedom, and a beacon of hope to the world. God has Blessed America! And yoked together in freedom, may America and Americans always be a blessing to the world.

III. YOKED FOR OUTREACH:

You see, this passage holds a lot of truth that we already know. The old saying, "It's not what you know but who you know, that makes the difference," in this case is true. Jesus says in 11:27, "All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

But then he gives a blanket invitation of comfort and welcome, Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." This is an invitation of comfort and welcome that is reminiscent of the words on that great Lady, the Statue of Liberty written by the poet Emma Lazarus? "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Lady Liberty has been a beacon of freedom ever since the French honored us with her gift. And just as she is a beacon of freedom, the Church is a beacon of freedom as well, freedom from sin. Freedom to serve. Freedom to make a difference.

CONCLUSION:

On this 4th of July, let us celebrate our freedom by yoking ourselves anew to the one who sets us free, Jesus Christ, the son of God. And let us come to His table to be fed, to be yoked with Him and to be yoked together to represent and serve Him in the world today so that others may know the same freedom we know.

This is the Word of the Lord for this day.

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Bibliography

1. Dynamic Preaching, July/Aug/Sept 1999 Vol XIV, No. 3. (Seven Worlds Publishing, Knoxville, TN) p. 3.

2. Emphasis, July-August 1999, Volume 29, Number 2. (CSS Publishing, Lima, OH)

3. The Pastor's Story File (Platteville, Colorado: Saratoga Press), June 1985

Other References Consulted