Years ago, about when I was about 11 or 12 years old, we decided to create a raised bed garden. The dirt in the area where we wanted to put the garden was mostly heavy clay which doesn’t work the best when you are planting most crops. It is heavy and compacts very tightly which will restrict the amount of water and oxygen that the roots need to grow.
So we decided to create some raised beds and fill them with dirt. Now, we had good soil just down the hill from where we wanted our garden, so what I did was I took a shovel and a four gallon bucket and I would fill them all to the top with good black dirt. But this is where the really hard work came. While it was hard enough digging the soil out of the ground and filling up the buckets, I still had to haul those buckets up a steep hill about 50 feet (roughly 17 yards) to dump them into the garden frames.
Bucket after bucket I hauled up that hill. Scoop the dirt, fill the bucket, walk up the hill, pour it out. Hundreds of times I repeated this, the whole while waging war against the mosquitoes that would hide in the dirt that I had dug up. It was a very hard and challenging project that I had undertaken, but I eventually got it all done.
Maybe a year later we decided that we needed a little more growing space. I got the frames built and ready to put dirt in, but this time we did something different. Instead of hauling all of those buckets of dirt up that hill again, we talked to a neighbor who had a dump truck, and he brought us a whole load of dirt and dumped it right in our new garden bed. He had saved me hours of time, and completed the task in a matter of a few minutes. Instead of having to struggle under the weight of all that dirt once again, he made it easy.
Which finally brings us to our verse today.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 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.” Matthew 11:28-30
Instead of requiring us all to try to keep the entire law of the Old Testament, Jesus did it for us, and took it all away.
No more struggling to remember all of the feast days, all of the commands concerning which animals you could and couldn’t eat, no more bringing of sacrifices each time you sinned. Before Jesus came, there was no one who was able to keep the Law perfectly. Everyone made a mistake at least once, and all it takes is one sin to make you a sinner. That is why the Law was there, to show everyone that they were all sinners.
Jesus took that all away and simplified it into one thing: love. Love God and love your neighbor. Treat others as you would want to be treated. That is what we need to do now. He makes it easier.
All of the sins that burden a person down Jesus wants to forgive and take away. He wants to forgive them for all of their sins and shortcomings so they can be at peace in their heart, knowing that they have been forgiven.
We don’t need to struggle under the weight of our sins. We don’t need to bring doves or lambs as a sacrifice to God for our sins. We don’t need to remember each and every law in the Judaic Law. We just need to remember one thing: love. Jesus has made it easy.
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 