I think in that there's a couple of movements. There's a couple of transitions that we have to make, that as a body of Christ we have to transition from doctrine. Doctrine is good. All of these things I'm writing are good. Doctrine is good. It is good to know your word. It is good to know what it says. It's good to have doctrine, sound doctrine. But we have a real problem when doctrine turns in from doctrine into a statement that says I know everything that you don't know. Doctrine misses the point if it ends at doctrine; that we have to move from doctrine to yoke. There's a huge difference between doctrine and yoke. A yoke was a rabbi's way of life. It was his way of interpreting scripture. It was his doctrine lived out. It was a rabbi's teachings on how to talk to your wife, how to talk to your husband, how to discipline your children, how to give, how to receive, how to worship, how to walk a daily walk out, how to respond in adversity.
A rabbi's yoke was his way of living. One rabbi came along and he said his yoke was easy and his burden was light. He was a rabbi with shmeka which meant that he could make up his own yoke. A new rabbi with shmeka, the word would have gotten around and he would have drawn crowds of say 5,000 to 10,000 people in a city without any cars or roads or things like that like we would have. People would have come from all over the country to hear this new rabbi's yoke because maybe his yoke was easier to live than the rabbi they were currently under. It wasn't just doctrine. It was a way of life - two totally different things. How many of you realise that it is perfectly possible to believe in something that you do not care about? We cannot do that as a body. It has to be yoke, but you cannot care about something that you don't believe in.
Like let me say it this way. How many of you believe with all of your heart - I'm not tricking you, this should be all of us. How many of you believe with all of your heart that God has forgiven you of every sin? Sure, we believe that with all our heart. What's that called? Doctrine. That's called doctrine and that's good, we should believe that. But how many of you who believe that God has forgiven you of every sin, how many of you have felt guilty in the last week? So you mean you believe you're innocent, but you still feel guilty. [Laughs] What's wrong with that picture? Because how many of you know if you feel guilty you'll act guilty? If the truth is innocence then the truth is innocence. How many of us would believe - don't raise your hand to this. This is a rhetorical because if you know your Bible this is - yes. How many of you would believe that Jesus honours taking care of the poor? Of course we do right? We believe that with all of our heart. That's called doctrine.
But how many of us have a yoke that honours taking care of the poor first with all of our finances? That's the difference between doctrine and yoke. How many of us believe that Jesus said don't slander and say false things or true things about other people that aren't edifying - as a matter of fact Jesus said things like don't let any corrupt communication come out of your mouth. In other words everything that comes out of your mouth edify. Jesus actually said it one more way. He said if it would hurt you don't do it to somebody else. That's called what? Doctrine, but yoke is living it out, actually caring about what Jesus said, actually living it. That's what will give the church credibility. Wasn't it the Dalai Lama that said that he liked Christ but he didn't like Christians? That is the difference between doctrine and yoke. It is perfectly possible to believe in what Jesus said and not live it.