Lifting Life's Burdens

LIFTING LIFE’S BURDENS—Matt. 11:25-30

Propositions: Jesus is the one who can lift your life’s burden and give you peace and an inner rest.

Objective: My purpose is to challenge anyone with a heavy life’s burden to fully trust Jesus with their all their burdens.

INTRODUCTION:

Illus: In the Philippines a local pastor used the following parable to illustrate Christ’s offer of rest (Matt. ll:28) and the response of people who won’t trust Him completely: The driver of a caribou wagon was on his way to market when he overtook an old man carrying a heavy load. Taking compassion on him, the driver invited the old man to ride in the wagon. Gratefully the old man accepted. After a few minutes, the driver turned to see how the man was doing. To his surprise, he found him still straining under the heavy weight, for he had not taken the burden off his shoulders.

1. A Spanish proverb: “No home is there anywhere that does not sooner or later have its hush.”

2. “Burdens comes sooner or later, some are seen and the deepest

are unseen.”

3. People’s weariness comes from enduring their burdens, probably the burdens of sin and its consequences. By placing themselves under His yoke and learning from Him, they may find rest for their souls from sins’ burdens.

4. A mission Sunday School teacher read, “My yoke is easy.” She asked the children, “Who can tell me what a yoke is.” A little girl responded, “It is something they put on the neck of animals.” “What is the meaning of God’s yoke.” The four year old stated, “That’s when God puts His arms around our necks!”

5. Now, in Palestine yokes were made out of wood. The oxen would be brought in and the carpenter and, very likely Jesus made yokes as a boy in his carpenter’s shop in Nazareth, and so He knew about this. The oxen would come in and they would measure the oxen, they would carefully mark out the wood and they would carve it and then the ox would be brought back later for a final fitting because it was important that the yoke fit perfectly so that it didn’t chafe and harm the animal. And it was the token of the submission of the animal to pull a load, to carry about a responsibility, to take orders, to be directed by someone, to plow a field, or to pull whatever they were to pull. And the same thing was transferred over into the Jewish thinking so that a pupil who submitted himself to a teacher was said to take the yoke of the teacher. It was a yoke of instruction. I am glad that Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." There is no reason for you to struggle with burdens that are too heavy for you. If you will turn to Jesus, He will help you carry your burdens. And there is no burden too heavy for Jesus.

I. AN INVITATION FOR ALL BURDEN BEARERS “Come…Take… learn”-- Christ is the Source of the greatest invitation extended to man, and He offers this invitation at great cost. Paul said, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich (II Cor. 8:9).

1. Seeker (to look for; to search for) “Come to Me”-- The basic word means to: come hither, come here, come now! This is one of the sweetest passages in the New Testament. It shows the willingness of the Lord care and provide for His own. The kings and earth and the great are usually difficult of access, while Jesus is not only willing, but invites us, to come to him. Note how gracious the invitation is! The invitation is to all who are needy. "Come" means to believe or receive and has the idea of “come here” with the “here” implied. It is like John 6:35, when Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” The point is, "I alone can give knowledge of the Father; come to Me, and receive the instruction." Come--To come means to believe (Acts 16:31); to receive (John 1:12); to eat (John 6:35); to drink (John 7:37); to look (Isa. 45:22); to confess (1 John 4:2); to hear (John 5:24-25); to enter a door (John 10:9); to open a door (Rev. 3:20); to touch the hem of His garment (Matt. 9:20-21); and to accept the gift of eternal life through Christ our Lord (Rom. 6:23). The object of faith is not a church, a creed, or a clergyman, but the living Christ. Salvation is in a Person. Those who have Jesus are as saved as God can make them.