Matthew 11:25-30
His Holy Ministry— Is Our Source of Rest!
25At 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. 26Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
27“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.
28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (NIV1984)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
How important is rest? Studies have shown that after 36 hours without sleep, most people will experience extreme fatigue and hormonal imbalances that result in decreased attention, poor decisions, and even speech impairment. Other studies show that if someone does not take breaks during their workday, their productivity is lower than those who do take periodic breaks throughout the day. To put it very simply: We need rest!
How important is rest? Scripture gives us a clear irrefutable answer to that question. In the opening chapters of the Bible we’re told that God incorporated rest into His design for His Creation. We’re told, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing, so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (Genesis 2:2). Was God “tired” by the time He finished creating the heavens and the earth? Of course not! God “rested” on the seventh day to model and to sanctify a time for rest for His people. When God established His covenant with His Chosen People He codified “rest” when He gave His people the Third Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8). God’s command to “rest” applied to everyone— adults and children, masters and servants, foreigners and animals. God even commanded that every seventh year was to be a year of “rest” for the land. (See Leviticus 25)
Sadly, sin led God’s people to take God’s command to “rest” and twist it into something God never intended it to be, namely, a futile attempt to show how “wise and learned” they were by strictly following all the Sabbath rules and regulations — which they added to God’s command to rest.
Today as we conclude our sermon series on His Holy Ministry let’s see how His Holy Ministry— Is Our Source of Rest!
Matthew begins our text by saying, “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.’” What are the words, “At that time,” and the words “these things” referring to? We find the answers to those questions by looking at what Matthew reveals to us just prior to our text. Jesus had just sent His Twelve apostles out to proclaim the message, “The kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 10:7) and gave them the authority to prove the validity of this message by performing miraculous signs. (Matthew 10:8) At the beginning of chapter 11 Matthews tells us, “After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee” (11:1). This is when John the Baptist sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (11:2) This is when Jesus revealed to the crowd of people following Him that John is the fulfillment of Micah’s prophecy, “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you” (Micah 3:1). This is when Jesus, “denounced the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent” (11:20). All of this is contained in Matthew’s statement, “At that time….”
The people’s response to the ministry of John the Baptist and the people’s response to Jesus’ ministry typifies the response of many people right down to this very day. Their own “wisdom” and their own “intelligence” “blinds” them to Who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for everyone— including them! The people who pride themselves on their “objectivity,” the people who boast that they are not among the masses of the “simple” and the ”uneducated” and the “naïve” tend to find Jesus’ teachings to be irrelevant and unacceptable. When this is their mindset, when this is how they view Jesus then “these things,” namely, the Truth concerning Who Jesus is and what Jesus came into this world to accomplish, “these things” are “hidden” from them.
Does this mean that highly educated people can and will never be able to understand Who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for this world? Not at all! In His grace and in His mercy God “reveals” “these things” to the “little children.” This is a reference to everyone who believes, marvels, and clings to God’s holy revealed Truth— with a simple humble childlike trust!
It is to those who despair of their own “wisdom” and their own “learning,” it is to those “little children,” that is, everyone who trusts in Jesus for their eternal salvation, it is to people like you and me that Jesus speaks the words that are at the heart of our text, “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 you who are weary and burdened.” On the surface these words are very easy to understand. Why? Because we understand how easily our work leaves us feeling “weary.” We understand how often our work can feel like a “burden.” We understand work, don’t we. The nature of our lives here on this earth involves work. It’s what we do as human beings. We work the ground. We work at our jobs. We work at school. We work to provide for our families. We work to take care of the house. Word, work, work. It’s what we do all of our lives!
But, when Jesus promises to give “rest,” when Jesus promises to provide “relief” to those who are “weary and burdened,” He is not talking about people who are physically or emotionally exhausted because they’ve been working too hard for too long. No, my friends, when Jesus promises to give “rest” to those whose work has left them feeling “burdened,” when Jesus promises to give “relief” to those whose work has caused them to be “weary,” He’s not talking about a burden and a weariness that is caused by a mountain of credit card debt, or a pile of regret, or a failure to achieve all of their personal goals. He is talking about providing “relief” to someone whose soul is “weary” because their conscience is “burdened” with guilt.
Have you ever fit that description? Has your soul ever been “weary”? Has your conscience ever been “burdened” by guilt? Has an unrepented sin ever led you to say along with great King David, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer”? (See Psalm 32) Have you ever taken a long, hard, honest look at your own life and realized that you have more than enough reasons to say along with the apostle Paul, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing”? Has your life ever led you to a point where you come to the same conclusion as Paul, “What a wretched man I am!” (Romans 7:18-19, 24)
This is the person to whom Jesus says, “Come to me…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.” These words are also very easy to understand— when we stay focused on the cross of Calvary’s hill! (Pointing to the cross) Jesus graciously invites us to take His “work” — the “work” He did to accomplish the Father’s Plan of Salvation for this world— to take His “work” and consider it our own! Take His perfect life and consider it your own perfect life. Take His innocent suffering and death and consider it your own suffering and death. Take His victorious physical resurrection from the dead and consider it your own victorious resurrection from the dead!
Yes, my friends, the cross on Calvary’s hill enables us to understand what Jesus is promising us when He says, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” What goes through your mind when you picture a “yoke”? Most of us probably think of a piece of wood that “yokes” two animals together. Together they are able to plow more ground. Together they are able to pull a heavier wagon. Together they are able to share the “burden” of the work. Now picture that you are “yoked” together with Jesus— the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, the One who loves you so deeply and so completely that He was willing to pour our His holy precious blood to completely pay for all of your sins! Jesus’ “yoke” is “easy” and Jesus’ “burden” is “light” because Jesus does all the work! We love Him— because He first loved us! We are committed to Him — because He was first committed to us! Jesus’ “yoke” is “easy” and Jesus’ “burden” is “light” because He has already paid for all of our sins! He fights all of our battles— especially the greatest battle of all! (Pointing to the cross) Jesus is our relief, our rescue, our rest throughout our entire journey here on this earth! And when we stumble and fall in our walk with our Lord we have nothing to fear! Why? Because Jesus is “gentle and humble in heart.” The instant we turn to Him and humbly say, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13), He picks us up, dries our tears, wraps His arms around us and says, “I already have!” That’s the “gentleness” and the “humbleness” that we will always be able to count on!
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” When you stop to think about it, my friends, that’s the central message of His holy ministry. (Pointing to the cross) Through His holy ministry Jesus invites everyone whose soul is “weary” because of their own sin, Jesus invites everyone whose conscience is “burdened” by guilt to come to Him. He is our only Source of rest! And when you stop to think about it, that’s one of the main reasons we come to church on a regular basis. Gathering together for worship not only gives us an opportunity to “unplug” from our busy, hectic, demanding, and sometimes exhausting life, but gathering together for worship gives us an opportunity to “plug into” the One who is “gentle and humble in heart,” the One whose “yoke” is “easy” and whose “burden” is “light,” the One who freely gives us “rest for our souls.” Gathering together for worship gives us a unique opportunity to meet with Jesus, to listen to Jesus, to learn from Jesus, to receive from Jesus the “rest” He promises to give us as He comes to us through His holy Word and Sacrament.
How important is rest? Studies have shown that a lack of rest can have serious consequences for our mind, our body and even our health. That’s why God Himself commands His people to take some time for rest on a regular basis. But God’s command to take some time to rest does not begin and end with making sure that you take a day off from work or school or take a vacation so that you can get away from the “rat race” for a week or two. The Sabbath day, the “day of rest,” was always designed to give God’s people— to give to you and to me— an opportunity to come to Him so that we can receive “rest for our soul”— especially when our soul is feeling “weary” because of our sins, especially when our conscience is feeling “burdened” by our guilt.
“Come to me,” our Savior says to us. May God grant that we will always treasure the fact that His holy ministry is indeed our source of rest!
To God be the glory!
Amen