Yoking up with Jesus in prayer
November 17, 2025
Turn your Bibles, if you would, to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. And praise God for good, godly young ladies who serve the Lord with their lives. What a great thing that is. Matthew chapter 11.
Once you find that, let me talk to you for just a bit. Matthew chapter 11. It is the first book of the New Testament. The New Testament is the second half of the Bible, if you will. So, Matthew chapter 11 in God’s Word. If you got that, would you say, “Amen?” Good deal.
I have felt compelled by the Lord for the last couple of days just to focus on prayer. I try to do that every year, at least some on Sunday morning, because prayer is so huge. I mean, it is just—it is breathing to us. Natural prayer ought to be. It is not—
But it ought to be like that for us. Christ was praying all the time. By the way, there are two types of prayer. I think we are adjusting this microphone a little bit; we will get there in just a minute. But two types of prayer.
One is prayer closet praying. Matthew 6 talks about that, and that is when you get away from everybody, everything. It is interesting: the Bible says when you go to that closet, shut the door. That is kind of showing you put everything else out, and you just get along between you and your Lord. You need that. I need that. There have been many times in my life that is the thing that held me together. You say, “Nothing held you together?” Yeah, I am a little crazy. But, you know, from going all the way off the cliff, you know—and that is prayer closet praying.
I heard that some of our teens have been trying to pray for at least five minutes. And that is awesome. That is a great, great challenge.
But then there is a different type of praying: it is just praying all the time. The Bible says, “Pray without ceasing in everything with prayer and supplication.”
Spurgeon—I read this, oh, maybe a year or so ago—it challenged me. I am not there. I do not act like I am there, for sure. But Spurgeon said at one point, he said, “Rarely does 15 minutes go by that I have not talked to God.” That was awesome. I am not there. I do not know about you. I am just confessing a little bit, but I will say, “Lord, I am going to pray all day long.” And in the afternoon or evening, I will say, “Lord, I am sorry. I meant to pray all day long, and I got busy, wrapped up in life, and I did not pray like I wanted to pray.” But that is prayer—two different types of praying.
Prayer is one of those things nobody has arrived at.
I mean, if they act like they have it all together and they have a perfect prayer life, write them off, friend. It is called hypocrite Pharisee. Nobody has it all together besides Jesus. All of us, all of us have so much growing to do.
The apostles—Jesus and the apostles—they are the elite, the apostles. And they see Jesus praying, and they say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” That was elite. And the elite Christians do not act like they have it all together in prayer. They are like, “Man, I need to grow in prayer,” because prayer is where it is at. It is where things get accomplished in life.
There is a preacher—I will not say his name, because I do not agree with everything he teaches. He is not a bad—he is a good man. He is a successful pastor for 25 years. He has written over 50 books. He has done some great things. God has used him greatly. He is not a bad man. He is 90 years old.
Someone was interviewing him and said, “Hey, if you could talk to your young self, what would you tell yourself when you were young?” He is 90 years old, pastored, written 50 books, on and on. God used him. And he has a lot of degrees. And he said, if you could tell your young self, give your young self some advice, what would you say? He said, “First of all, I would not go to seminary.” You know, there is Bible college and seminary. He said, “I would not do that.”
He said, “I would really just work at knowing my Bible and praying.” He said, “Know the Word and know His ways.” You know His Word by being in the Bible. You know His ways by praying. He said, “That would be my advice.” He said, “In fact, in the interview, he said, ‘You are going to be disappointed in my simplicity of the answer.’” He said, “He had all kinds of degrees. He said, ‘They did not do anything.’ He said, ‘Just know the Bible and know prayer.’”
So that is what would be my advice to a young, young me. That would be it: Know the Word and know His ways through prayer.
D.L. Moody would say this. He said, “Those who have left the deepest impression on this sin-cursed earth have been men and women of prayer.” That is so true. Not necessarily the talented, not necessarily the high IQ, not necessarily the most charisma, all the rest of that, but those men and women of prayer.
You know how to be a great mom? Pray. You know how to be a great husband? We had our first child. There was a doctor in our church. He was not proud; he was a humble, good man and a very godly man. And I said, “Hey, Dr. Schumacher, you got any advice for me?” He had several biological children and adopted several children and whatnot. And he said, “Paul, learn to pray.” And I kind of chuckled, “Hey, I got that.” He said, “No, I am serious. You want to be a good dad? Learn to pray.” Great advice. Prayer.
Christians travel the furthest on their knees. You want to accomplish things for God. I am not against some books and techniques and all that, but I am telling you, friend, the secret is prayer. That is it. Prayer. So very, very important.
Now, let me just say this about prayer. Prayer might not be as hard as you think it is. I mean, it is just plain as if I am talking to Steve Page about a certain subject—well, no, you are talking to God. And prayer does have to do with asking. It is all right to ask God.
Let me read you a verse before we get to our text verses. Matthew 7:11. “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him.” Just asking. You do not have to pray one of those big, fancy prayers, you know.
When I was a teenager, we went to church—this church—for a while, about a year. It was a good church, but a very country church. The teen boys had an activity one time, and this is an honest truth. I am telling all these stories; we have not even gotten to the text yet. But the teen activity—I was like in sixth grade, usually they let me go over this time—we were meeting with other churches out in the country in the woods, a bunch of teenage boys from different churches, just men and boys. And they had a competition. This was a competition: each church had a pickup truck out there, hopefully with oil-dry because you get stuck in Florida. And they were catching armadillos. Whichever church had the most armadillos in their pickup truck won.
You get a bunch of boys around an armadillo; everybody is kind of kicking at it. One of them from behind just tosses it in the back of the pickup truck, and the one that had the most won. What about that? Country church. You thought we were country, amen, you know?
But in that church, there was a man that would say, when he would pray, he would say, “Our gracious Heavenly Father.” And when he started praying, as teenagers knew, he was going to say that about—we would keep count. We were praying along with him, well, maybe not, but he got 10 in that prayer. If I remember right, the record was high 20s or even the 30s in one prayer: “Our gracious Heavenly Father, our gracious Heavenly Father,” 30-something times in one prayer.
Now, you do not have to be all flowery like that. God knows your heart. But it is just simple, just from your heart praying, asking. Prayer is not as hard as you think.
A brand new Christian that does not know the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob—and you do not know all that—and you can pray. You are just talking to your Dad. Prayer is amazing.
By the way, it is interesting: we try everything in the world, and then we pray last. Not we? Well, I tried everything else; might as well pray. That is just our nature. Pray. I am just on my prayer. “You have not because you ask not.” I pray.
I am going to really just—just a little different passages—Jesus and the Yoke. But we are going to apply this passage to prayer. This passage applies across the board in the Christian life, but we are going to take it and apply it to prayer for a little bit this morning. Matthew chapter 11, all right? Nobody is asleep yet, are they? You cannot say, “I fell asleep during preaching.” I have not even started preaching yet. Hang on for a second. You fall asleep in a minute here. You do not fall asleep to the preacher.
Would you please stand, if you are able, just to show respect to the Word of God? Matthew 11. We are going to start in verse number 28. Matthew 11 and verse number 28 of God’s Word. Matthew 11:28. You ready? Amen. Good deal.
Here we go. Jesus speaking, He says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor.” Now, I tend to think that labor has to do with things we put on ourselves. Maybe we caused that labor, or maybe we have set things in our life that we want to get in; we are just laboring. “Come unto me, all you that labor.”
Then He says, “and are heavy laden.” I think that is things in your life that you had nothing to do with. It just got laid on you. It could be cancer. It could be, no problem, no fault of yours, we got laid off of the job. Could be a car wreck, was not your fault. Life has a way of laying things on you. “And Jesus [says] coming to me all that labor and are heavy laden.”
Notice what He says, and I like this: “I will give you rest.” That does not mean you sleep in church, all right?
Watch what He says in the next verse—amazing. He says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me.” Let me just stop for a second. Let me get something out. We are going to do it a little bit later on, but we are going to get it out right now. And here is a yoke. Brother Frank got this thing for me. He looked for it. Yokes are hard to find. This is a real yoke.
You would put oxen typically in Bible times, or a workhorse or a mule or whatever. One here, and one here—often it would have—this must have been small miniature ponies or something, I do not know, this yoke here. But they would put it around their neck, and then this here would be connected, excuse me, back here to a wagon or to a plow or something. But you have got two animals, two cows, two horses, two oxen, whatever, and they are plowing along.
And Jesus says, “Now come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The next thing, He says, “Take my yoke upon you.” Then He says, “Now learn of me.” See, because when you yoke with Jesus, you learn from—you learn from this person over here. By the way, you say, “I want it all, Lord.” Get the yoke with Him; you will learn Him. I promise you. Start living for it; you will learn Him.
So many people want to learn and they want to know God, but you are not going to know God unless you get the yoke. That is when you—my old boss used to say, “You want to get to know someone? Work with them.” You think you know them, but you work with them. You find out they are lazy, and on and on. You said, “Well, they are a hard worker.” Why do I go negative? But you learn them when you work with them.
He said, “Hey, take my yoke and learn of me.” What else does He say? We are getting back. He says, “And learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” By the way, that is beyond physical rest. It is just your whole being, your emotions, your personality. You just find rest in your souls. That is a great place to be in. I am not there all the time. When I am not there, typically, I am in my own yoke, not the Lord’s yoke.
He said, “Take my yoke and learn of me. I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest in your souls.” Then He says, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” By the way, in comparison to the world’s yoke—bondage to sin, worrying, fearful, always trying to climb and get ahead of somebody else—man, I tell you what, that is a hard yoke. His yoke is easy. It is light.
Let us pray for just a bit here that God would challenge us about prayer this morning. Lord, I do come, Father. I pray that You would guide me, Lord, as You want me to be moved and say. Help me to say every little bit of phrase You want me to say. Challenge us, Lord. Lord, if I am going to go off my notes and just say something, I want to say what You want me to say. And Lord, I do pray that You would apply it to individuals as they are also diverse, Lord, different levels and whatnot. So would You give every individual what they need this morning? And we will thank You and praise You for what You do, Lord. And Jesus, then we pray, amen.
Thank you so much for standing. You may be seated.
A yoke represents production. In our day and time, it may be equivalent to a John Deere tractor. I mean, how many have ever tried to use a hoe in a garden? Anybody ever tried to do it? Oh, my goodness, yeah. That is no fun. I mean, pray, Lord, for tractors, you know. I mean, but it is like a bulldozer in our day and time. It is something that gets the job done. You are productive.
And the Lord says here, He says, “Hey, if you are laboring, you are heavy laden,” He says, “I will give you rest.” The next thing, He does not want you just to lay around doing nothing. He says, “Take my yoke.” Get into yoke with the Lord. He said, “You are learning of me. I am meek and lowly in heart.” Now, we really want to apply this thing to prayer for just a little bit as far as this yoke here.
All right, I am going to use some volunteers. Brother Garrett, can I get you up here? I am going to get Brother Garrett, and he has volunteered to be in the yoke here a little bit. And I need someone else. I have not talked to someone. Asher, I am sorry, you will not work today on this thing here. I tell you what, Oscar, can I use you this morning? Can I get you up here? All right, I tell you what, we are going to get them on this side. If I can get Brother Garrett—now, I hate it, Brother Garrett—you are going to have to get down on your all fours, man. He knew it was coming. Oscar, if I can get you down here, got to get on your knees. He is facing this way right here. If I can get you down here, all right?
Now, sorry Oscar, sorry Oscars. Now, Garrett is going to represent the Lord. Garrett is a little bigger. Oscar is getting tall, though. I tell you, Oscar is growing up. He is. I mean, Oscar, here lately, boom, you know, he is getting tall. But Oscar, if you do not mind, you are not going to be the big guy in this illustration, though you are getting bigger. But we have this yoke, all right? This is—by the way, notice what He said there. He said the teenagers are liking this for sure. Notice He said, "Take
Original File: 2025-11-17 - Pastor Paul Chisgar ＂Yoking up with Jesus in prayer＂ - Sunday AM 11⧸16⧸2025