 This is what Jesus begins to lay it out. He says, first of all, I want you to take my yoke. Now speaks of a covenant, speaks of a relationship with Jesus. A yoke in the Bible was used. A yoke is actually a wooden beam that would connect two oxen together and will cause those two oxen to pull the weight and sometimes to either fertilize the earth or whatever the owner would have for it. So it was a wooden beam over the neck of both oxen. They would combine them together. The Bible says the anointing breaks the yoke. Yoke can be also a addiction or a sin in someone's life. The Bible says also that we should not be unequally yoked with unbeliever. That means that we should not, you and an un-Christian or an un-Christian and you should not be connected because you guys are going to have a problem. He's going to go this way and you're going to go that way. And then this yoke is going to suffer. So a yoke speaks of a covenant that you have with someone, a covenant. It's a very old word and it's not used in a today's vocabulary. You don't go to AT&T and say, I want to make a covenant with you. You don't. You don't walk out to your local gym and you just say, Hey, I just really would love to make a covenant with you. They will look at you and say, Shakespeare's, I don't reach Shakespeare's. I don't know what you're talking about because covenant is not a word that is used in our vocabulary. Word covenant comes from the word to cut. In the old times, the way they would make covenants, they didn't have peace treaties as much as they had covenants. What they would do is they would take an animal and cut the animal in the half. So this word covenant comes from the word to cut. They will cut the animal in the half and both parties. So if I and you want to make a covenant, both of us would walk. I first, you first or doesn't matter who, we both walk through the animal that has been cut in the half. And after that we, you know, have a meal, we celebrate. And this is what it means. Now we are in a covenant. This is not like you sign with a paper. Hey, here's the paper. I mean, this is the death of them. This is how serious this is. The difference between a covenant and a contract is this is that a contract is written in ink. A covenant is always made in blood. That's why marriage is a covenant. And when two people, you know, they live holy and they live pure, when they get married on the wedding night, there is a breaking of blood and there is a blood that is released and it seals the marriage covenant. Contract is made in ink, covenant is made in blood. A contract requires a part of you. A covenant takes all of you. So if you have a contract with someone or let's say you are leasing an apartment or let's say you are renting a house, contract involves, you are taking a part of the landlord's possession, his house, and you're renting it. You're not taking his heart. You're not taking his emotions. You probably don't even know where he lives and you don't care because you are in contract. A covenant takes all of you. It's like marriage. All of her, all of him is exchanged. A contract expires. It's a six month when you live in a certain place or a year or it could be two years if you are with some kind of phone company but a covenant never expires. Why did I put these transitions? From the beginning, God never made contracts. With Noah, God made a covenant. With Abraham, God made a covenant. With Israel, God made a covenant. Jesus drinks the grape juice and the last supper and he says, this is the blood of the covenant. Our God has no idea what contract is. When he thinks of relationship, his worldview is a covenant. But our worldview is a contract because we don't make covenants with people but a marriage is the best example of what covenant looks like. When you are living with a contract mindset and you take that mindset to church, guess what happens? Your word is based on emotion. You come in and it's only once a week and other times I don't do anything else. There are some people right now who are not present with us, who are not home relaxing but who after they work, these pews were not made by Gabriel and Michael Archangel. They were made by people who are in a covenant with this church, who after they finish their work and they could relax, they go to this certain place and they work their butt off so that these pews are done. A contract mindset is when I come to church and I say, I'm going to come here until the Lord moves me, means until somebody starts to push on my soft spots or somebody bursts my bubble or I don't get fed no more, nobody cares about me no more, then I will go to another place. God wants us to break a contract mindset. Take my yoke, means God says I want you to think in a covenant, not in a contract. When you think about God in a way of a contract, it will reveal itself because that's exactly how you will treat your marriage. When it gets hard, it will say, well, we grew apart. Irreconcilable differences, whatever that means. What, you did not know you married a female? You did not marry a male, you married the opposite. I mean, there will be differences and they need to be reconciled. If your mama or grandma could reconcile them after 60 or 50 years of marriage, you can reconcile too. And so people come and say, expires, people come and say, well, this is just an ingot, it's just a contract, I can get a divorce 12 months. You have to take a yoke. Relationship with Jesus indicates you approach Jesus with a view. He's not looking for a date. He's looking for a bride. You approach Jesus with this view. He wants me to be yoked with him. He wants me to be in a relationship where there is commitment. And I love what Jesus said. He said, my yoke is easy. I believe he had to say that because most of us, that is in somewhere in our subconscious. Many people are afraid to commit to God because of this. They think committing to God means my life is going to be so hard. And therefore we all want to commit to God. When we do all the parting, all the sex, lose our lysis, virginity, and then when we're sick and tired, and then we will definitely commit. Why? Because we then are ready to do the hard stuff. But until then we just want to take it easy. You know what? Let me give you a news flash. The same man who says, I will die and three days later will rise from the dead means his words have power. He says, my yoke is easy. A yoke of sin is hard. A yoke of addiction is hard. His yoke is easy. If whatever you are wearing is not easy, you might be wearing something else than his yoke. A relationship with Jesus is easy. The relationship he has with you, now that's a different story. It's as though Jesus is telling us, he says, for you to be connected to me, piece of cake. For me to put up with you, well let's not get started. Because for me to get into your life, I hang on nails. And for me to get you through life, you have no idea how much you're going to put me through. And so Jesus says, you got the easy part. For me it's the hard part. And most of us, we got it out of the way around. We're like, oh it's so easy for God. I'm so wonderful. But it's so hard for me. God is so holy, so demanding, perfectionist, always one stuff out of me. I'm just so, it is just so hard. I'm so glad we're going to heaven as a, just a blessing for this hard relationship I endured. Jesus said, no, my yoke is easy. It's easy. Somebody say amen. In marriage, the beauty of marriage is that when you get married, whatever you have, she has. And whatever she has, you have. So if she comes with debt, well, you got debt. If she comes with a Mercedes and it's paid off, you got a Mercedes. You can put your Honda Civic in the garage and delete the pictures on our Facebook and pretend you never knew the Honda Civic existed. And drive a Mercedes and don't ever say it was your wife's. It's our Mercedes. And that's what happened when you got to know Jesus. He took your sin and you just took his righteousness. He took all the junk and you took all the good. But then there comes a point where you have no more sin for Jesus to take. But then you got some good stuff that you start to hide in a special safe. You're like, Lord, I love the fact you set me free from pornography and smoking. Amazing. And you gave me this beautiful freedom. But this, this idea that I have, like I have some extra money that I scus saved up. I have like a fifth car in my garage and Lord, but this other thing that I have, I, let's not, let's leave that alone. That is mine. And then the same kind of people who have certain areas that are mine come to the Lord and reach their hand into his pocket. And they recognize acts as denied when the things you want from the Lord become inaccessible. You're like, hmm, and we begin to rebuke the devil after that. But sometimes you must understand. You cannot just expect the Lord to let everything be accessible to you if your life is not accessible to him. Now you can daydream, well, that is not true. God said it. God's word settles it. But when you are married, you know the contract says you can have anything your wife has. Her body is your body and your body is hers. But if you offend that woman, you're not going to touch her. You're not going to come near her and you will be praying before you eat that soup, hoping in Almighty God that if there is any poison, the Lord will neutralize it in Jesus' name because you will know you can't just take your hands into her pocket, figuratively speaking, and when you deny her access.