Americans are tired people. Hectic schedules have many folks going to bed late and getting up early, and surveys show that most people in our country simply don't get enough sleep. A recent newspaper article reported some companies are encouraging employees to take naps during the lunch hour, even providing couches, pillows, and alarm clocks, so their workers won't be so tired and unproductive in the afternoon. A highway patrol official says that besides drunk drivers, the most dangerous people on the highway are over-tired drivers. But it is not just our bodies which get tired. The stress and complexity of modern life takes its toll on our souls. Many folks are overwhelmed with their responsibilities at work or school. Others get burned-out by financial or family problems. Every day hundreds of people across the country are admitted to hospitals because they are suffering from physical or emotional exhaustion. Many of us, at least at times, are very weary people. Often we need some rest.
Is the church a place where we get some relief from the rapid pace of life? Well, there are a few folks who find it a very convenient place to take a nap on Sunday mornings, but a lot of people, including a few of us in this room, know that being involved in church can add many hours to a weekly schedule and make life even more hectic. A little poem captures this truth: Mary had a little lamb, 'twas given her to keep; but then she joined the Baptist Church and died for lack of sleep. Church meetings on four to five nights a week, combined with the personality conflicts which seem to abound in so many congregations, can be an exhausting experience.
But there is hope. The words that Jesus has for us in our text today are indeed great news for weary people. Our journey in the Gospel of Matthew brings us to Chapter 11:25-30. Here we read Jesus' marvelous invitation. Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Today, as we explore Jesus' words, let's pray He would help us discover how we can experience the marvelous rest that He offers.
Some of us might wonder, can followers of Jesus really find rest? Many times we have talked about how it is not easy to be a Christian. In fact, a few weeks ago we looked at the end of Chapter 10 in Matthew, and saw that followers of Jesus will frequently have more conflicts within their families. Being a Christian is not a life of lying in a hammock sipping lemonade. How can it be restful? Even Jesus' words are a bit confusing. 11:28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." We are tired. We need rest. What does Jesus offer us? Not a bed or pillow, but a yoke. The yoke, of course, was put on an ox or a donkey to pull a heavy load. Jesus uses the term to refer to being His disciple. To be a Christian means following Jesus, learning certain things and doing certain things. It hardly seems like an easy life. Yet, Jesus promises us that, if we follow Him, we "will find rest for our souls." If we seek to live by His grace and for His glory, we will find that His yoke is easy, and the burden is light. How does this work? I think the heart of what Jesus says is this: "Being a Christian is not always easy. If you follow Me it is going to sometimes be a very rough and uphill road. But, it will be a good life, a very good life and though I can't promise you that your body won't sometimes feel very tired, your soul is going to be refreshed." There are many reasons why this is true, but let me mention four reasons why being a Christian is a good life.
#1) The alternatives to following Jesus are not good. The light burden that Jesus gives us to carry is a clear contrast to the heavy burdens of other religions. That is what the Pharisees put on people in Jesus' day. They taught that to please God, one had to follow a long list of religious rituals and regulations. Because people never kept these rules perfectly, they often struggled with guilt and always wondered if they had done good enough to please God. That was a heavy burden. Jesus' yoke is much lighter because it offers forgiveness and assurance of God's favor. There are still folks today whose religion involves very heavy burdens. Anyone who chooses to follow a path of works and law to earn salvation is under a much more heavy yoke than someone who has found salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Those who seek to earn God's favor by performing religious rituals or following a set of rules, no matter whether they are Hindus, Muslims, Catholics or Baptists, are all bearing very heavy burdens.
But, it is not just religions that put heavy burdens on people. Whenever people decide they are going to ignore God and just do what they want to do, they often end up in slavery, becoming slaves to their own appetites. As Jesus says in John 8:34, "He who commits sin is a slave to sin." We see that so clearly in our society. Addictions to alcohol, gambling, pornography, and illicit sex ruin lives and destroy families. There are people living in this community who don't have enough money to buy food for their family because they are losing hundreds of dollars a week gambling. Friends, sinful addictions are a much heavier yoke than following Jesus. So, though being a Christian is not always easy, it is often much harder to not be a Christian.
#2) Following Jesus is a good life because the Holy Spirit helps us obey the Lord's commands. This makes it a lot easier to be a Christian. One of the most important promises that God gave His people in the Old Testament was that one day He would make it easier for His people to obey Him. Ezekiel 11:19,20 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. This promise has been fulfilled. Jesus has come, He's given us, as believers, the Holy Spirit and, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, we are now "new creations in Jesus Christ." That means that if we are a Christian, if we are a believer in Jesus Christ, we have a whole different attitude about obeying the Lord. Before Augustine became a Christian, he lived a very immoral lifestyle. One day, following his conversion, he was walking down the street when one of his old friends, a prostitute, tried to entice him. "Augustine," she called, "it is I." "Yes," he responded, "but it is no longer I." God had changed his desires, and if we are a believer in Jesus Christ, He is doing that in our lives. His Spirit is giving us a desire to follow Jesus, which makes it a much easier thing to do.
#3) Following Jesus is a good life because we are able to overcome two big problems, guilt and fear. Even though our outward circumstances may be very difficult, even though we may be having lots of horrible, rotten, no-good, very bad days where we want to move to Australia, this freedom from guilt and fear is what provides rest for our souls. Guilt is a problem with which many folks struggle. Financial mistakes, broken relationships, sexual misconduct, lies which have been told, all bring a lot of painful guilt to our lives. One way some people try to deal with this is a product called Disposable Guilt Bags. These are a set of ten ordinary brown bags on which are printed the following instructions: "Place the bag securely over your mouth, take a deep breath and blow all your guilt out. Then dispose of the bag immediately." The kit sells for $2.50 and thousands have been purchased. Friends, don't buy any of those bags, even if they are on sale. There is nothing on earth that can get rid of guilt except the blood of Jesus Christ which He shed on the cross. A Christian finds, as 1 John 1:9 says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. What a promise! What great news for sinners like you and me. Following Jesus is a good life because we can do it with a clear conscience, free of the heavy burden of guilt.
Being able to overcome fear, especially fear of death, is something else which brings rest to our souls. When General Patton, of World War 2 fame, was commended for his great courage, he told a friend, "Frankly, every time I hear a gunshot, I realize that I'm a coward. I am afraid to die." Most people are, though in our culture we have figured out ways to ignore and disguise death so that lots of people seem to think it is not something with which they will ever have to deal. But they will, we all will. Yet, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the promise that Christians too will one day be raised, give Jesus' followers confidence in the face of death. As a pastor, the greatest privilege I have is to stand beside the bed of a dying saint who is not afraid, because he or she really believes, "Jesus lives and so shall I; death, thy sting is gone forever." With the burden of guilt and the fear of death removed, our soul starts to find rest, even when following Jesus doesn't seem so easy.
#4) The Christian life is a good life because it is a life full of joy. Now, some folks think being a devout Christian and being a happy person are somehow incompatible. Christians are all supposed to be stern, sour people. But that is not the case. The more serious you are about following Jesus, the more joy you are going to experience in your life. Part of this is because of what Jesus tells us in Verse 29, "I am gentle and humble in heart." Jesus is not a cruel dictator, but a compassionate King who chooses to be our Father. There is joy in following a Lord like that. There is also joy because, as David Livingstone said, though we are called to give up many things, we never have to make a sacrifice. Don't misunderstand. Sometimes the Lord asks us to do things which make us very uncomfortable. Sometimes following Jesus costs us financially. Sometimes it means people will laugh at us, or even persecute us in some way. But don't be discouraged. The Lord assures us that whatever we give up for His sake, He will reimburse us many times over.
Remember Luke 18:28 Peter said to him, "We have left all we had to follow you!" Peter is saying, "Lord, we have made a lot of sacrifices for you." "No, you have not," Jesus responds. Luke 18:29 "I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life." It is worth it to follow Jesus. We will get some of the benefits here and now. We have mentioned a couple of them already, freedom from guilt and fear. The bulk of the rewards will be experienced in the next life, in heaven. But, the important thing is that in the end, no one who has followed Jesus Christ is going to regret his/her choice one bit. And knowing that can give us joy. Someone once told me, "Pastor, I don't really like my job a whole lot, but when I think about the paycheck I get every two weeks, it keeps me smiling all day long." Friends, there will be times when we don't really like following Jesus a whole lot. But, when we remember all the marvelous promises that the Lord has given to those of us who trust Him, it should keep us smiling, keep us rejoicing throughout the day.
Friends, I hope you see that though it is not always an easy life, being a Christian is always a good life. Though our bodies may get very tired, our souls will find rest if we come to the Lord. Now let's look at the verses in our text we have not read yet. 11:25-27 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Here we see Jesus telling us who will come to Him and find rest. First are those chosen by the Lord. Jesus says the Father chooses to hide these things and reveal them to others. These things refer to the truth about both God's judgment which we looked at last week, and the truth about His grace and rest that we talked about today. When we read these verses, we ask: Why would God do this? Why would He choose to reveal the truth to some people, but not to others? How can this be fair? Yet, Jesus addresses those questions. Instead, He says, 11:25a,26 "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." He then goes on to say that intimate knowledge of God the Father belongs to Him and to those "whom the Son chooses to reveal" the Father. There can be all sorts of discussion as to what it means when the Bible says the Lord chooses, or elects, someone. But, if we believe what the Bible teaches, we have to say that this is what He does. My prayer would be that the Lord would help us grow in our understanding so that we would be able to say like Jesus, "I praise you, Father, because You have chosen to reveal Yourself to me." Oh, friends, keep studying, keep asking questions, keep praying that the Lord will help us not to fear, but love this truth.
Secondly, Jesus says, "Those who are little children will come to Me and find rest." Jesus' words may shock us a bit. He says it is not the wise and learned, as we might think, but little children who will receive His grace. Now, He is not talking about age or education here. He doesn't mean that the only way to experience His grace is to be ignorant and that if you have a college degree, you are in big trouble. Nor does He mean His favor rests only on kids, and that we adult types are out of luck. Rather, as Don Carson says in his commentary, "The contrast is between those who are self-sufficient and deem themselves wise and those who are dependent and love to be taught." You see, friends, those who think they know everything are not going to get any help from God. This includes the Pharisees of Jesus' day. They were smart guys who could recite the Old Testament both forwards and backwards. They knew lots of things, including some things which were not true. They thought that Jesus was not the Messiah because He didn't do what they thought a Messiah should do. When they looked at Jesus, they saw someone causing a lot of commotion and maybe some problems for them. They didn't need Him! The Pharisees were so blind!
The self-sufficient who think they don't need the Lord also include some pretty smart people in our day. Though a growing number of college professors and other intellectuals realize they need to trust in Christ, the university remains a very hostile environment for Christianity. Many students can affirm that from their experience. In the political arena there is Geoff Fieger, the Democrat candidate for governor of the state of Michigan, a very smart man, referring to Jesus Christ as "some goofball who got himself killed." In religious circles we have the scholars of the Jesus Seminar who claim that Jesus never rose from the dead and did not say 80% of what is attributed to Him in the New Testament. All very smart people. All very self-sufficient, and all very blind to the truth. You don't have to have a Ph.D., however, to think you know everything, or to think you know everything you need to know. There are people who never read the newspaper, much less a book, who claim that they have no need for God and that Christianity is just a bunch of bunk. We may not think of these folks as the wise and learned, but they are people of whom Jesus was talking. They think they are very self-sufficient, but they are very, very blind.
On the other hand are "the little children," or as one version reads, "the simple ones." As Carson says, these are those who know they are dependent and love to be taught. They include people of every age and IQ. One was C. S. Lewis, the brilliant Oxford professor, who realized that though he may have known more than most other people, he knew very, very little about life as a whole, and did not know things he needed to know. God opened his eyes and he was eager to learn the truth. Others in this category are people of average intelligence like Randall Cunningham, the Vikings quarterback, who gives thanks to the Lord for all his abilities and accomplishments. And, yes, this group includes the five-year-old girl who prays and asks Jesus to be her Savior, and the boy with Down Syndrome who likes to sing songs of praise to God. These are all people to whom God reveals the truth. They are people to whom Jesus has chosen to reveal His Father. These are all people who long for the rest that Jesus promises. These are the people who accept Jesus' invitation and come to Him to receive that rest.
Friends, will you come to the Lord to find rest? Are you one of the wise and learned who feels self-sufficient and thinks you can make it fine without God? Or are you one of the child-like ones who realizes you are dependent on God for everything you have, including salvation, and thus you are eager to be taught by the Lord, to receive His grace, and to experience the rest that He promises. I hope you are in the second group. If not, I pray that God would open your eyes so that you see how much you need Him, and that you would long for the rest that Christ offers. If you are not sure what this involves, talk to me. If you are a Christian but feeling very weary, turn to Jesus today and ask Him to refresh your soul. If you have been experiencing that recently, give praise to the Lord, for He is the one that brings true rest to the weary.
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