How tired are you? Recent studies have shown that the average American doesn’t get nearly enough sleep. Employers are concerned about this. As a result, some workplaces are actually encouraging their employees to take brief naps after lunch, so they can be more productive in the late afternoon and evening. We are a people who need rest, and not just physically. More important, we need spiritual rest.
Thankfully, we have a Savior who understands our need and provides. Today, a message of hope is proclaimed to the weary and the burdened. It’s a message for all of us. Jesus doesn’t just tell us to take a nap. No. Istead, JESUS GIVES REST. He offers us rest as only he can. Jesus offers rest to weary heads, but 1) it’s not on a pillow. Rather, Jesus tells us to place our weary necks 2) under his yoke.
1) Not On a Pillow
Have you seen the church calendar lately? There’s a lot going on. In particular, we have our VBS coming very soon. Much work needs to be done. How about your own daily calendar? Is it full? Is it too full? Sometimes, we wonder if we’ll ever get a break. But there is hope. The words that Jesus has for us in our text today are indeed great news for weary people. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
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, last week we looked at the end of Chapter 10 in Matthew, and saw that followers of Jesus will even have problems in their own families because of their faith. Being a Christian is not a life of lying in a hammock sipping lemonade. How can it be restful?
We are tired. We need rest. What does Jesus offer us? To answer that we need to first understand what Jesus doesn’t offer us. He certainly doesn’t offer a pillow. But isn’t that just what we need? Who doesn’t like to lay his head on a soft, fluffy, pillow? It’s the picture of comfort. A pillow represents easy living. There are pillow soft upholstery on all sorts of furniture. There are even extra soft pillow-top mattresses for added comfort and rest. Who wouldn’t want a nice soft pillow right now? (But I’m not giving you any!)
The last thing we need is a pillow. Now, I’m talking about spiritual issues. Jesus provides rest, but he doesn’t offer any spiritual pillows. This is because he knows that’s just what our human hearts desire. We want to take it easy. We want a soft cushiony resting place. Deep down we desire spiritual pillows.
That’s what the Pharisees offered people in Jesus’ day –spiritual pillows. They taught that to please God, one had to follow a long list of religious rituals and regulations. Now, God’s will is very simple. He desires all people to honor him with their lives, and he put together a perfect list of decrees that cut to the very core of morality. Yet, God also reminds us that we can’t live a perfect, morally upright live on our own. The human heart doesn’t want to hear such a thing. And so, human beings came up with added laws and regulations which were meant to make godly living easy. In fact, these man-made decrees were held in higher esteem than God’s own word. Yet, that’s what made it all so easy in the Pharissees’ minds. If they made up the rules, well, then they could fluff up and manipulate the rules.
This is nothing new. The human heart has always desired a soft, easy rest. And it will stop at nothing until it achieves it. We think we can achieve spiritual rest on our own. How we like to play this game with God! God’s Word is very clear. It says there is only one path to salvation – faith in Christ Jesus as your Savior. That means admitting we can’t find spiritual rest on our own. Well, our sinful hearts are rubbed raw by such a message. Deep down we all want to fluff our own pillows. Our sinful hearts aren’t comfortable with the idea of someone doing that for us. The temptation is to change our position. If you don’t like what God says, then fluff his Word up, until it suits your needs. Manipulate it until you are comfortable with it. That’s what our sinful flesh desires.
This is risky business because we are imperfect pillow-fluffers. No matter how hard we try we can never please God. He demands perfection. He insists we make our spiritual beds without any wrinkles or creases. As Christ tells us in summary, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all our soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you shall live.” We can never do that perfectly. And then what happens is we end up struggling with guilt and always wondered if we had don enough to please God. What we think is a perfectly fluffed pillow in reality is nothing more than a crumbled, lumpy mess.
And so we fluff and we twist. We smash and we pull. We toss and turn in order to get our lives to resemble something comfortable. Our pursuit to transform our lives into a soft pillow wears us out. What we once thought was a soft cushion becomes a heavy burden that threatens to smother us. Whenever people try to find rest on their own, we are tempted to ignore God. Then we are tempted to become slaves to our own appetites. As Jesus says in John 8:34, "The one who sins is a slave to sin." We see that so clearly in our society. Our society offers all kinds of pillows. This world offers all kinds of fun, comfort, and rest. But then those pillows soon become burdens. Addictions to alcohol, gambling, pornography, and illicit sex ruin lives and destroy families.
2) But Under a Yoke
Jesus offers a solution to our desperate search for rest. He doesn’t offer a pillow, but something much lighter, a yoke. Now, a 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. Jesus insists that we take his yoke upon our necks. Jesus tells us that in order to find rest we must deny ourselves. Step out of the way and follow your Savior’s lead. Let God be God. That’s what it means to place your neck under Jesus’ yoke. Jesus’ yoke is light and easy because he does all the work. We love because he first loved us. We are committed to him because he was first committed to us. He paid for all our sins and set us free. He fights all our battles. He equips us with his mighty power. Jesus is our relief, our rescue, and our rest at every corner. Our rest doesn’t rest on us at all. It rests only on Jesus, who broke the yoke of our own sinfulness and removed its burden on the cross.
Our yoke is light because Jesus removed guilt and fear. Guilt is a problem with which many folks struggle. Financial mistakes, broken relationships, bad conduct, lies which have been told, all bring a lot of painful guilt to our lives.
Many people try to offer alternatives to removing guilt. I was flipping through the TV channels last evening and came across a religious station. I stopped to watch for a few minutes. I was surprised by what I saw. There was a Christian rock concert being aired. The group on stage was performing a rap song, and the lead singer was attempting to teach the audience a dance called, "The Holy Ghost Hop." The gist of the song went something like this: If you perform that dance, the Holy Spirit will come into your heart. This is your way of accepting him. And once he enters you, you must jump higher and higher because that’s the proof that the Spirit of God has begun to remove your burdens from you.
Talk about taking the free grace of Christ and stuffing it into someone’s face! What a temptation to trust in oneself for freedom from sin! Friends, there is nothing on earth that can get rid of guilt except the blood of Jesus Christ which he shed on the cross. There we find the undeniable proof of forgiveness. There we find rest. We can’t dance our way into heaven or hop ourselves into salvation. It is only by God’s grace in Christ that we are saved. There’s our only source of rest from guilt.
Being able to overcome fear, especially fear of death, is something else, which brings rest to our souls. How many people are afraid of death? 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, your 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.
Though our bodies may get very tired, our souls will find rest in the Lord. Listen to your Savior, "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.” Do you notice whom Jesus says finds true rest? It’s the little children. Jesus’ words may shock us a bit, but understand what 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. Jesus doesn’t mean that people with college educations are out of luck, or that only kids will get to heaven. Rather, those who acknowledge their sinfulness and realize that it is a burden too heavy for them to bear – they are the ones to whom Jesus promises rest.
Jesus is urging us to have a simple, child-like faith. There’s your source of rest. Have you ever watched a little child sleep? It is so peaceful, so restful. Why is that? It’s because they don’t have a worry on their minds. They are content and confident that all their needs will be met. It’s only when we get older and think we must be in control that we lose sleep pacing the floors. Jesus is telling that as Christians, sleep like babies. Don’t worry. Place all your burdens on him. He cares for you.
Do you wonder why Jesus uses a yoke to picture rest? After all, a pillow would seem so much more appropriate. But not really. Try sharing a pillow with someone. It’s impossible. In fact, nobody wants to share a pillow. Pillows are personal things. A few weeks ago, one of my cousins came to visit with her family. They all brought their own pillows. My cousin’s husband made the mistake of forgetting his pillow at our house. Finally, she called a few days later and asked if we could mail the pillow to them. Apparently her husband just couldn’t sleep without his pillow.
We are all tempted to try and find our own source of comfort, which is uniquely ours. That’s especially true in spiritual matters. This is precisely why Jesus uses a yoke to picture rest. A yoke implies that two things have been joined together. Jesus doesn’t give you a pillow to selfishly sleep on. Rather, he ties himself to you. He carries you. You are not alone in this life. Your Savior is with you. He is yoked to you. He is committed to you now and forever. That means you’ve nothing to fear. You can rest just like a baby. Amen.
