Text - Matt 11:28
Introduction
A strong young athlete was wadding waist deep in the shallow part of a recreational lake. Unknowingly he stepped off an underwater ledge and plunged fifteen feet beneath the surface of the water. After several seconds he bobbed to the top of the water flailing his arms and gasping for breath. The lifeguard attentively watched the situation from a nearby bank. A friend of the struggling young athlete grabbed the lifeguard by the arm and cried out, "Bob can’t swim, you’ve got to help him." The lifeguard remained unmoved as Bob continued kicking and splashing wildly. The young man’s friend furiously yelled at the lifeguard, "If you won’t go after him, I will." Calmly but firmly the lifeguard said, "No one can help him yet. I’ll help him when he’s ready for my help." After a couple more minutes the young athlete stopped his struggles, as his body became limp. The patient lifeguard suddenly dove into the water, swam out to the young man and brought him to shore for a successful rescue. Later the friend asked the lifeguard, "Why did you wait so long to help my friend." The lifeguard responded, "As long as Bob was trying to save himself there was nothing I could have done for him. If I had swam out to him he would have grabbed me and pulled me under with him. Only when he was weak, exhausted and had given up was I able to save him."
This story of struggle and exhaustion before deliverance is not only a lesson for lifeguards but it is a powerful revelation of what often occurs in our spiritual journey. Some of you may feel spiritually exhausted, worn out, weary of trying to please God by your own efforts. If that’s you Jesus has great news for you. In Matthew 11:28 he declares, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Proposition: In this powerful verse Jesus gives us three keys to finding spiritual rest.
I. Come to Jesus
“Come to Me…”
A. To really hear what he is saying you need to hear what he is not saying.
1. Didn’t say “Come to Buddha, Mohammad, or Hira Krishna, it really doesn’t matter who you come to, all roads lead to rest.”
a) No, Jesus is not a pluralist, he is very exclusive.
b) Is Jesus narrow-minded? Yes, in some areas and so are you. When you find the one thing that works, you eliminate all others that don’t work. Example – gasoline in our car
c) It’s amazing that we will be so precise when it comes to making decisions about our car, but so haphazard when comes to make decisions about our eternal destiny.
2. Didn’t say, “Come unto the temple, synagogue, church, the Bible, or prayer. He said, “Come unto me.”
a) Pharisees vs. Jesus – Bread of life, Shepherd, Door, Way, Truth, Life.
b) Jesus was saying, “I’m not leading you to the answer, I am the answer.”
B. When you come to Jesus who do you come to?
1. You come to God.
2. You come to the one who created you.
3. You come to the one who went to a cross and died under the penalty of the sin you committed against Him
4. You come to the one who knows the worst about you, but loves you anyway.
5. You come to the one who loves you, accepts you, sees you as infinitely valuable and precious, and who is always ready to forgive you.
Transition: Jesus said, “Come to me.” But if you come to Him, you have leave something else. What you leave is man made religion.
II. Give up on works righteousness
“all you who labor and are heavy laden”
A. Talking to very religious Jewish people. People who were laboring and were heavy laden under the weight of religious rule and regulations.
B. Pharisees
1. 10 Commandments – Added 10,000 addition rules to make sure you kept the 10.
C. The problem with rules.
1. You never know if you’ve done enough.
2. I can’t love people, I can only use people.
Transition: It is very tiring and wearisome to labor and be heavy laden in your efforts to please God. Jesus has said to those kind of people, come unto Me, and when they come unto Him, He has promised to give them rest.
III. Receive the rest of faith.
“and I will give you rest.”
A. The word Jesus uses for rest is a fascinating word.***
1. Means to refresh or revive, as from labor or from a long journey.
a) Maybe you have been working very hard to please God but you feel like you can never do enough.
b) Today your journey can come to an end. Jesus is promising you a rest
2. Sometimes in the New Testament it is used for “chains falling off of someone’s hand.”
a) Do you feel shackled by your inability to please God?
b) Well it’s time for the chains to fall off. Jesus is promising you rest.
3. In Greek literature it is also used of a door that you can’t quite open, but that suddenly flies open.
a) Does it sometimes seem like the door of God’s acceptance is blocked.
b) Get ready the door has been kicked open. Jesus is promising you rest.
4. The word is even used to describe a person who is in financial debt. But one day an envelope filled with cash arrives and removes all their debt.
a) Because of your past sins and past actions do you feel like you owe a debt to God that you can never pay?
b) Well that doesn’t have to be true anymore, an envelope filled with God’s riches is in the mail. Jesus has promised you rest.
5. In the Old Testament rest is a common theme.
a) The Hebrew word for rest can be used to describe a vacation after long period of work.
b) It’s time for a spiritual vacation. Jesus has promised you rest.
6. When the Hebrew word was brought into the Greek language in the Septuagint it was used to describe the Sabbath day.
a) That’s when God rested from His work.
b) He rested not because He was tired but because there was no more to do.
c) In His finished work Jesus Christ has done it all. Jesus has promised you rest.
7. St. Augustine said, "Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rests in Thee."
B. If all this is true, how do we enter into Christ’s rest?
1. We do it by faith.
2. Eph 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
3. Christianity is not a religion of struggling to do but a relationship of resting in what has been done.
Transition: I know what I’m talking about. Personal Testimony.
*I realized how many times I was reading the Bible had become more important to me than Jesus.
*I came to see that I prayed constantly not because I loved God, but because I loved prayer and what I thought prayer would do for me.
*I found out that I wasn’t loving people, because I didn’t have time for people, they only got in the way of my pursuit of God.
I had traded freedom in Christ for the weary life of trying to please God.
Now don’t get me wrong. There is great value in the spiritual disciplines. But whenever you begin to see them as a means of receiving God’s love and acceptance, all they will do is make you weary and heavy laden.
Conclusion:
So what I’m asking you to do?
I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m asking you to trust in what Jesus has already done.
1. Come to Jesus
2. Give up on works righteousness
3. Receive rest and say “thank you”
Are you burdened, are you heavy laden. Have you been trying in your own effort to please a God that seems un-please-able? Jesus is promising you rest.
I’d like to give you some action steps but I really can’t. The work is already done. All you have to do is rest.
Ezekiel – The priests wore linen.
Instead of working to find rest, you are to now work out of His rest. Because you now know, based on your simple faith in Christ, you are totally loved, completely forgiven, and absolutely accepted by Almighty God as if you were Jesus. Jesus has given you rest. Let’s pray.
Altar Call
*** Research for these definitions – Malcolm Smith was the primary source
