Toten Rocks
Matthew 11:25-30
What kind of week have ya’ll had. Wit the predictions of the weather and things to do. I felt like I was toten rocks all week long. I can use the word toten can’t I? This is home and you know what I mean don’t you?
I am talking about working on something and feeling like you will never finish.
For some reason, I have quite a bit of experience getting rocks. When I was in Colorado, I used a pick up truck to get rocks n the mountain and carry them back to our house to make a parking spot in the yard for the truck. There really wasn’t much grass to speak of, what was there was brown most of the time because of the lack of water.
We made 5 or 6 trips up into the mountains to these creek beds with Round River rocks about the size of you fist. The first trip we got too many on truck and we floated back down the mountain, swaying a little more the comfortable. We would load rocks for 2 hours and have them off the truck in 15 minutes. And they did not seem to cover much ground. We did not have to carry them to the truck , we just pulled out to the edge of the creek and started tossing.
It was actually pretty hard work. You would have thought the truck should hold more. You knew it was full looking at the tires.
So toten Rocks pretty much describes any time I have task that I don’t seem like I will ever finish the job or project. Perhaps that is a problem with my physical body or perhaps it is a problem with the tools I have.
Today scripture starts with a little unfamiliar portion but it is section by editors to be a block a scripter about rest. But there are several things that we should connect so that we can understand this better.
This event is connected to the Gospel of Luke Chapter 10 when the seventy that are sent out pairs to preach,. This is the day assigned for the return Matthew doesn’t refer to any of that. The chapter starts with a Question of John the Baptist asking if he really is the messiah. Then he talks about how the people received John and Jesus and basically could not be pleased.
Then Matthew records Jesus pronouncing WOEs on the cities where he taught and healed because the people did not respond with repentance for their sins.
We stared reading at verse 25, 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.
Jesus gives prays to his heavenly father, as being the Lord of heaven and Earth. He is sovereign which, means that there is no one higher. He is the top. He is the greatest authority with no rival.
Jesus credits God with hiding knowledge from the wise and prudent. That sounds a little selective and perhaps a little unfair. Wise and prudent sounds like the intelligent people perhaps the ones with good educations. In Jesus day that would have been the Pharisees and Sadducees, government officials. Probably many f the successful business men.
That sounds a little short sited and hard, the message was hidden from all the smart people.
I am not sure that the definition of wise and prudent is as restrictive as the scripture states. If it did, most of us would probably not be hearers of the message today.
I think it means something else. I think that he means people that think they are wise and know it all, people that have no need for help because they know it al had have done it all. They pulled themselves up by their own boot straps and loaded the truck with the rocks of life all alone.
Basically, I am saying people that are completely independent and don’ nee help from anybody….Anybody includes God.
This can include the religious of then and today. This can include anyone that is comfortable and feels like they did it on their own.
Then on the other hand he reveals to the children. So God helps the children, who would that be? How about people that know that they need something. Perhaps they have no clue what it is. They feel their emptiness and eagerly listen to the teaching of the messengers that Jesus sent. It does not automatically require that have to be poor.
They just have to realize that they do not now it all.
In reading this it would be easy to wonder why God was unfair to hide something from one group. Unfair that God would hide the message from anyone.
Maybe we need to define fair, something done following the rules, something done justly. Exhibiting no bias, something not unequal.
It looks like God is not treating people in two different ways. . The wise and prudent verses the children. The independent verses the dependant.
The God of the bible exist as he reveals himself in scripture. God is described in scripture as being Holy and just, He can not even see the sinful. He as creator has set the rues and all that is less than perfect is going to be destroyed.
Man on the other hand is sinful by nature. Romans 12 tells us that the wages of sin is death. Man is consistently sinful: therefore, man deserves death.
- Is God just in punishing all sinners for their sin? Yes
- How about the question, can god be considered good if he punishes sinful people….Yes
Why? How is that fair because, with God the rules are consistent. There is no grey area. The decisions for everyone are made with clear and precise rules and no exceptions are made y whining and crying.
What would be fair in this situation….Every man woman and child should be punished in Hell for the lives we live on earth…..According to scripture – Fair warrants our punishment.
That is not something that any of us really would want to consider.
We consider fair when a tornado skips our house in the path of destruction.
Fairness is receiving what we earned as punishment or reward… So who do we know that qualify to receive a heavenly reward for their ability to live a righteous life. I m sorry, but I don’t thing that a single person I have ever known would make it.
Here is what you need to understand. God is never going to seem fair based on our standards. But id he were to act out of perfect fairness none of us would have a chance.
What actually happens is not fairness it is GRACE….God’s choice of salvation using his plan, his suffering…
The disciples returned and Jesus Gives thanks because God does not act in fairness but, he acts in grace.
Grace from our just God, would be as simple as saving just one person from earth. But we know from scripture that our God has redeemed millions upon millions of people and is in infinite. Which means that there is not set limit like some rebate on a car or an appliance that is limited by quantity.
God can afford to give grace to everyone. He does not set limits he establishes choices.
Jesus praises God for starting that gracious act of God to send his unmerited grace for the salvation of mankind at this moment.
Next , he says, "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.
God has empowered the son with all authority, God has committed all things to Jesus. That means the power over the storms, healing touch, the forgiveness of sin, that ability to judge nations.
Jesus also have the power to reveal his sovereignty to thoes that he chooses to.
Jesus is normally pretty open about who he is….he des not declare it and expect respect and worship. HE reveals it through his actions. HE lets people see with the touch of God feels like and let them now he hears their problems.
We are on a quest to know God, We can never really have any image of all he is because our vision imperfect. We can only see a tiniest portion of his love, Of his grace of any aspect of his nature. But we know he was compassionate because he even healed foreigners such as the centurion’s son. He touched Lepers and women that were unclean. The people that could never be touched by the community of faith.
After the description of his authority. He comes to the most familure part of this section of scripture.
"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."
Come to me all who labor…..Work, real work toten rocks, working in the factory or the dollar store for 70 hours a week. Heaven burdens…worries Working hard to pull a load of fears or trouble with health, peer pressure…What the people around you really think about your clothes or your spirituality.
We get burdened sometimes don’t we. This world tells us all the things we need to do and sometimes it keeps us up late at night. Sometime we just sit and worry about all the stuff we need to do.
We have more toten stuff to do than we can shake a stick at.
And this scripture just tells me to let Jesus work it out. It sounds pretty good but, most of us can’t trust him. I know I should do it ,because it needs to be done on time and right and I am the only one…We all have trouble being children and recognizing that we need help from Jesus to get our earthly work some and to keep any particular connection to God intact.
How about the burden of earning our salvation. Doing works in order to each what we think Jesus expects….
Jesus offers rest to these that acknowledge their need. Come unto me…..
Why would we want to submit to Jesus Christ, Some believe that coming to Jesus would add to you burden.. We thing he would increase the pressure…
But he says he will give rest and refreshment. He wants to give us rest from our attempt to measure up the standards that We believe the master sets for us.
Jesus mentioned that he will give is rest and to carry his yoke because it is light.
I have seen pictures of oxen pulling wagons on old cowboy movies. They were working at it. But there are also yokes for people.
Yoke, for people for carrying water, bucks of materials. The yoke defined by the Rabbis as to the expected responsibility for a Jew. Keeping the law would be the yoke that the Jew submits too. The yoke is the spiritual guidelines expected of people.
How often to we live our Christian life as if we has to do special work to earn our salvation.
I believe that this is what Jesus has to say to us. God take joy in being un-fair and offering grace instead. HE has taken away the heavy burden of overcoming your sin and encouraged us to realize that is the work of Jesus. He and the Holy spirit will lead us and the yoke he gives is is so light in comparison to dragging everything alone.
A famous study was done on two horses. The first one could pull 10,000 lbs on a sled. The second could pull 14,000 lbs. What would you think they could pull when yoked together in the same direction? Most people would guess something like 24,000 lbs, but the answer is 49,000 lbs! The sum is greater than a combination of the parts.
Our chuch family helps us to pull our loads and being around one another increases out power dramatically.
How much more would happen if we let Jesus help us pull our load.
I can assure you that he is ready and willing if we will only come to him and let him join us. If we come to him he uses is power to free us from the real loads in live. The things we think we have to deal with alone.
(The bags )
All glory be to God!
