Transformative Truth: Embracing Christ's Humility and Guidance

Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will set you free if we don't know the truth we will remain in bondage and that is the condition of many many Christians because they are ignorant they are bound the opposite of what Jesus said I could say Jesus is implying if you remain ignorant of the truth you will remain in slavery in bound but if you know the truth the truth will set you free free from sin free from all the hang-ups you have in your personality because of tragedies you faced in your childhood or problems caused you by others you can be set free from everything there is not a single problem in your life that God cannot solve. [00:59:12]

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart now in an earlier study we saw the exhortation in Philippians 2:5 saying have this mind in you which is also in Christ Jesus have this attitude in you which is in Christ now Jesus is saying the same thing here learn from me he says not just from a book do you know one big difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is this that in the Old Testament they only had a book no man could stand up in the Old Testament and say follow me look at me learn from me but in the New Testament we don't only have a book we have a person the person of Jesus Christ dead and risen and the Holy Spirit to show us what Christ is like and to make us like him. [02:22:48]

You can learn chemistry mathematics physics every subjects in the world you can learn by sitting in a classroom but you can't learn swimming sitting in a classroom you can't learn horse riding sitting in a classroom you can't learn to drive a car or a plane sitting in a classroom that needs hands-on experience and to become like Christ to learn from Christ you need experience in daily life for that he says take my yoke upon you now we know in our villages everybody knows what a yoke is the fields are plowed with two oxen ploughing together with a yoke upon their necks and they pull the plough together and that's how the field is plowed. [00:04:49]

When say one of those Bullock's dies and they get a new little bullet who doesn't know head or tail about flowering and doesn't know how to plow a straight furrow they yoke that new junior bullet with an experienced senior Bullock and it's as it were the senior Bullock tells the junior Bullock take my yoke upon you and learn from me just walk at the pace I'm walking walk in the direction I'm walking and in a few weeks you'll be able to plow a straight furrow you'd have learnt from me so it's not vocal communication do this do that it's hands-on experience and so when Jesus says take my yoke upon you he's saying come into a partnership with me into a fellowship with me and let's learn to let me teach you let me teach you something learn from me from my life from the way I live look at my earthly life. [00:05:47]

The Lord does not force us to do something anything forced if you do it even if it's a good thing it becomes a dead work you know in the Old Testament they only had good works and evil works in the New Testament you read about good works evil works and in Hebrews 6:1 and Hebrews 9:14 you read about dead works and it says we got a repent of dead works we must have a dead works cleansed in the blood of Christ what our dead works in a very simple way dead works our good works done with the wrong motive I could preach is that a good work sure but if I preach for money it's a dead work I can sing a song in a church good work but if it's son if it is sung in order to get some honor for myself it's a dead work. [00:07:22]

You can take a verse of scripture mechanically obeyed and force other people to obey it mechanically according to the letter of the law second Corinthians three I think is verse six says the letter kills you can follow the letter of Scripture and it will kill and you can take that letter of Scripture and preach it to other people in your church it'll kill them that's not the way to learn no the way to learn is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and to learn from him to look at his example so in 2nd Corinthians 3 after it says that the letter will kill do you go to the written letter of the law 2nd Corinthians 3:6 it'll kill this is in contrast the Holy Spirit gives life so how does the Holy Spirit give life by showing us when we read scripture not a verse or a commandment but the glory of Jesus Christ. [00:09:19]

When I look at scripture I have to see Jesus there that's what it says further down in 2nd Corinthians 3 and verse 18 with unveiled face I look into this mirror of God's Word and what do I see there I see the glory of Jesus Christ there and little by little the Holy Spirit changes me into that likeness and so we see here that the whole purpose with which God has given us the scriptures is not just for us to follow letter of the law it'll never make you a Pharisee you know the Pharisees who killed Jesus Christ were people who follow the letter of the law and they kept on trying to find fault with people they would find catch a woman in adultery and go to the letter of the law and want to stone her to death and Jesus would set her free because they didn't understand the heart of God they kept the letter of the law and they wanted to kill people punish people whereas God was always interested in redeeming people. [00:10:18]

If you give God's he's a man in sin he wants to save that man when the Pharisee saw a man in sin they were considering how which worse to use to put them out of the church so you find there are people like that even today when they see a person in sin they want to find which verse is there to condemn him but as when God sees a man in sin he wants to see how he can save him so that's an example of how the letter kills but the Spirit gives life you go to the letter of the law and you'll find a verse to hit somebody on the head with whereas if you go to the Holy Spirit he'll show you the glory of Jesus there and if you want life you've got to see Jesus right through Scripture until Lord help me to understand your nature learn from me take my yoke upon you and learn from me. [00:11:21]

The world can see the glory of God in creation Yallah is a glory they're the stars the planets and all the wonders there are in this universe but to the disciple of Jesus the glory of God is not seen in creation primarily but in the character and person of Jesus Christ in his humility in his in the way he lived on this earth when we think of the very fact that he did not consider equality with God is something to be held on to and grasped but came down and became a man that itself is a tremendous step in humility I mean just picture this if you as a dignified human being want to help a worm a wretched worm crawling on the ground and you love that worm so much because it doesn't know how to conduct itself you become a worm in order to get you know if you go to that worm as a man the worm will be terrified but you become a worm in order to communicate to that worm and lead it to a higher life this is a picture of what Jesus Christ need the difference between God and man is much greater than the difference between man and the little worm that calls on the ground and for me to become a worm would be a tremendous step in humility if I wanted to help that worm for God to become a man is a million times greater step in humility. [00:12:03]

The wonderful thing is that when he came to earth he did not choose to be an emperor the wise men who came hearing of the birth of Jesus looked for him in the wrong place they followed the star and when they came to Jerusalem he read in Matthew chapter 2 that they said hey we don't need to follow the star anymore because the king of the Jews where will he be born in a palace of course so they stopped following the star and that's where those wise men became foolish and they went to the palace to find where the king of the Jews was born and the people in the palace did not have a clue that the king of the Jews was even born these people from way down in the east came looking for him and the people who at the Bible they didn't even know the Sun King of the Jews was born and they King Herod goes to the chief priests and scribes and they say yeah yeah it says in the Book of Micah he's going to be born in Bethlehem but they couldn't care less about going to Bethlehem so the wise men come out and what did they do they became wise again they followed the star and when they followed the star they get the surprise of their life that this one who was the King of the Jews is in a little house a little hot they didn't come in time for the birth if they had come in time for the birth date of seen him in a stable with the cows and the donkeys they came a little late perhaps they were held up because they stopped following the star and they went deviated went to Herod's Palace instead of going straight to Bethlehem if you had come to Bethlehem they'd have seen that wonderful sight of the Son of God born in a stable but they missed that by time they came he'd moved out of the stable was living in a house and it says they came and saw him in the house but what I want to say is that even when he came to earth he further humbled himself how much did he humble himself there not just a little bit I mean if he was born in a middle-class family that itself would have been humility if he had been born in a servant's home that would have been even a greater humility but think of this he was born in a coal ship in my entire life I have never heard of anyone who was so poor that his child was born in a cowshed with the cows and donkeys never I don't know if there was any human being on the face of the earth who was so poor that his mother could deliver him only in a cowshed that's where the Lord Jesus Christ is unique why did he take go from the highest place in heaven to the lowest place on earth in a cowshed with a donkey's because he wanted to save people he came underneath everybody in order to lift everybody up how can you lift people up if you don't go underneath them you can't sit on top of them as a ruler and expect to lift them up you can give orders to them if you sit as a ruler but if you want to lift them up you got to go underneath them and he was determined to go underneath every single human being that ever lived and that's why he was born in a cowshed the lowest possible place to be born in he was born there and there we see his humility. [00:13:53]

If the Holy Spirit is to make us like Jesus he must bring us to the place where we don't despise sinners we recognize that we are sinners ourselves and we are willing to identify with them even if you are free from sin in order to save them from their wretched condition there we see the glory of Jesus humility the Holy Spirit wants to make you like that god bless you. [00:25:16]