Culturally Irrelevant

Someone once said a marriage without Jesus is like two ticks and no dog. It’s easy for a husband and wife to take their cues from each other and expect the other person to meet their needs by doing the right things. And if that’s the focus, it works in fits and spurts, but it eventually leads to a pretty exhausting and dry relationship, which is how I was told to do it. It’s works sometimes for Katy and me, as long as we’re getting pretty good sleep and the kids are behaving and work isn’t too demanding and the calendar is being nice… :)

We can’t meet each others needs, really. But as we’ve become more connected to Jesus individually, we’ve become more independent, more steady regardless of each others situation or what’s going on around us. The real bonus has been that as we’re more intimate with Jesus individually, the more energy and confidence and health we bring to the table when we’re together.

Experiencing this with Katy has taught me something else. I don’t have relationship problems with people. That’s really not the issue. Tension with a co-worker, pastor, friend, or family member isn’t the source of my problem. The source is my connection to Jesus. He’s the Vine and I’m a branch. When I’m connected to him intimately and constantly, life naturally flows to me from him and ultimately through me to others, regardless of what they say or do. But cut off that daily, intimate relationship with Jesus and I’ve got nothing for anyone, except myself, which is a frightening thought.

If I’ve seen anything that I have lacked as a man and that most men lack, it’s intimacy: the emotional and spiritual capacity and desire to be dangerously close to and vulnerable before God and other human beings for the sake of relationship. For the sake of loving and being loved. John Eldrige talks about the primal “wound” from our fathers, the wound with which we are all inflicted because of this fallen world and the broken relationships that have resulted. For us guys, that wound has kept us guarded, stoic, walled up, performance-minded, and a host of other things.

What about you? How’s your intimacy meter? How intimate are you with Jesus? How intimately have you known your spouse or your family today? Do you know what speaks to their deep desires and longings? Do you know what they’re really afraid of or hoping to see happen? When you see another believer, is it a handshake, a socially acceptable hug or a true embrace?

Our fear of intimacy, of getting hurt, causes us to create acceptable substitutes for true intimacy. I fear that we have so easily traded true Jesus-like intimacy with others, the kind that’s both passionate and pure, for connections that are more socially comfortable, more guarded. This is dangerous stuff, dangerous to the very intimacy Jesus died to give us and dangerous because it leads to far greater problems than the ones we’re trying so carefully to avoid.

part 3 – a burden

When I’m wearing the yoke of constant intimacy with Christ (abiding in the vine), carrying the load that I’ve been given is a joy. I have the grace for it. But when I carry that load, or more than I’m given, from any other “yoke”, I get outside that place of rest in Christ and begin to strive and strain. I start doing things my way, in my strength. That’s where burdens come in.

In the original language of the New Testament, this word burden, or “baros”, meant a difficult or imposing requirement. That’s different than the “load” mentioned before, which is a measured weight that is meant to be carried, like freight being loaded onto a ship. A burden is unmeasured and unfitting. It restricts movement and makes it difficult to be productive.

There are three different types of burdens that I see in scripture: 1) the weight of sin, 2) the traditions of men, and 3) difficulty during trials. In this post I’d like to stick to the first two. Paul covers the first one in Galatians 6: “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens…” (vss. 1-2) Here, burdens are moral faults or the burden of sin. Sin is a self-imposed burden that breaks my intimacy with Christ.

This kind of burden is like a broken arm. The rest of my body may be just fine, but that one area of pain takes all of my attention and keeps me from doing anything else. Untreated sin is a festering wound that cripples my ability to walk in faith with God and in relationship with others. Until the burden of sin is removed from my life, I can’t fully experience life in Jesus.

So a burden can be self-imposed through a choice to get tangled up in sin, and it can also be imposed by those in authority. Leaders in the body of Christ are meant to guide and serve, but often they make decisions out of their emotions or past paradigms and place requirements on people that are not from God. When a leader relies on sources other than biblical truth and the leading of the Holy Spirit, the result will usually be an unmeasured response that imposes a difficult requirement upon others. The pharisees were famous for this, and the early church battled it constantly.

Fortunately, the New Testament gives us examples of heavy burdens appropriately being withheld from the church. In Acts 15:28, the Jerusalem council sent a letter to the Gentile world telling them “it seemed good to us…not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements.” This is similar to the way Jesus speaks to the Church of Thyatira in Revelation 2:24: “But to the rest of you who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching (who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them) I place no other burden on you.”

I’m constantly checking my life for extra burdens. I’ve discovered that I am constantly in the state of adding burdens to my own life and the lives of others, even if it’s in very small, almost imperceptible ways. But the Holy Spirit is in the business of constantly removing burdens and weights. At this point in my life, I’m tired of carrying heavy burdens in my own strength. My only desire to is be yoked to Christ, carrying the load he has given me. Everything else in my life can take a hike!

…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Heb 12:1-3)

a load – part 2

In a previous post I talked about a yoke. The yoke connects an animal to a load in the best way possible. In the same way, Jesus’ yoke fits well and gives us grace for the load we’re pulling. By that I mean the yoke of intimacy with Christ makes pulling the load he gives a joy and a passion.

Paul tells the church in Galatians 6 to “carry each other’s burderns” (v. 2) and that “each one should carry his own load” (v. 5). We’ll look at burdens tomorrow, but for now, what does Paul mean by each one carrying his own load? This word “load” means the freight or lading of a ship. It’s a measured load and the ship being loaded is desiged to carry it. In the same way, there’s a “load” I was designed to carry. This is the same word Jesus uses when he says, “for my yoke is easy and my “load” is light (Matt 11:30).

God has given me gifts and talents and a desire to carry a specific load. But there are also false loads that I’m not designed to carry. Maybe it’s someone else’s load, but I’m tempted to pick it up. Maybe it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t belong on my yoke. And maybe it’s a load someone else is trying to put on me, but Jesus hasn’t put it on me. This is what was happening in Matt 22:4. The Pharisees were putting heavy religious requirements, or loads, on  people that God never gave. They were the traditions of men and not God. The loads were unmeasured and unappropriate for the ship they were being loaded to.

One load that I’m pulling right now is my role with The Harbor, a church plant in Pensacola, FL. God has given me very specific things to do in this season, but as soon as I wander from that narrow place of what I’ve been given to do, I start straining. It’s deceptive, really. It comes in as a sense that I need to do something extra to push things along or maybe a simple distraction that starts pulling me away from time with him. And the next thing I know, I don’t have time for everthing, I start feeling dry inside and then I wonder where the grace went.

OK, putting the cookies on the bottom shelf. It’s like this. If I stay in that intimate place with Jesus, keeping at his feet and staying in his word (his yoke), then it’s a joy to work (the load) because I’m not sweating the “stuff” of life. All the sudden the load becomes…well, easy. Believing is easier. Being patient with my kids is easier. Loving my wife and others is easier. But if I get outside that place and get loaded up with other interesting or “necessary” stuff, the journey starts getting hard. 

Here’s the BIG TEST I use for everything: if it distracts me from and pulls me out of that place of intimacy with Jesus, then it has to go.

part 1 – the yoke

 

yoke-making, old school

Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt 11:29)

I’ve taken on so many different yokes in my life. While my yokes are very different than those others have carried, they’ve been burdens nonetheless. Legalism: I served God for many years thinking I had to be disciplined enough to earn his approval. Fear of man: I served leaders for years with a deep need for their approval. Criticism: still struggling with this one. But why? When Jesus says his yoke is easy. Following him, being in relationship with him, being obedient to him is supposed to be “easy” in a sense.

The best picture I’ve gotten lately of Jesus’ yoke is in John 15. Here, Jesus is the true vine and we are the branches. My job is to remain in him, to stay put in his love by being obedient to his commands. That’s it. Intimacy with Jesus through constant remaining and obedience as he speaks. This intimacy is the yoke I wear. Sounds simple, but it’s the place where life comes from, where direction and power come from. And here are the promises if I stay in this place of love and intimacy: I will bear much fruit (v. 5), I will ask whatever I wish, and it will be given (v. 7) and his joy will be in me to complete my joy (v. 11).

If I pull any load from any other yoke, then I’m doing it in my own strength. Picture an ox that takes off the farmer’s yoke and then turns around and bites down on his load and tries to carry it along with his teeth. Wow! Even if it’s a fairly light load, that’s going to be one unhappy ox with no teeth and a load that’s not going to move much. Funny, but it’s what I’ve done with years of my own life.

Farmers used to make their yokes by hand. It takes a huge block of stout wood and a tremendous amount of work and time to make a yoke that can stand up to the pressure a mature ox puts on it. This place of heart intimacy with Jesus can withstand a lot of pressure, which is why God doesn’t mind taking years to form it in me. Once this place is formed, anything is possible.

Here’s what I’m asking myself these days. What are some areas in my life that are not easy or light? What in my life is creating hardness, difficulty and stress? Am I willfully carrying a yoke that Jesus hasn’t given me? If so, where did that yoke come from? Why did I accept it?