The Gentleness of Jesus

Welcome to New Horizon, please open your Bibles to Matthew 11.

Augustine’s prayer:

Come Lord, and use your keys. Open, so we understand.

You reveal so much, yet you are not believed. You warn us from the Scriptures, yet are not understood. Where hearts are closed, open and enter in.

“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).

Open, Lord- yes, open the hearts of those who doubt you.

Amen.

Read Matthew 11:25-30- At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Let’s get to it.

1. God reveals Himself at His own discretion.

Perhaps we have heard part of our text this morning- likely v. 28-30.

Important to understand those verses in context.

Helps answer questions- Who are those who labor? How do they labor? How does Jesus receive them? What does Jesus do with those who do come to Him? All answered in understanding the context.

Our text begins with a prayer- more on this shortly.

Notice what Jesus reveals about the Father in this short prayer.

God hides His truths from some; God gives His truths to some; God has given all things to His Son; the Son knows the Father and the Father knows the Son; others can know the Father if the Son reveals it to them.

God hides His truths from some.

These things- refers back to v. 20-24.

In these verses, Jesus denounces those towns filled with people who would not repent of their sins.

In fact, the entirety of ch. 11 deals with seeming failure in ministry, failure to rightly trust in Jesus.

Had he done these things in Sodom, they would have repented.

What has caused these cities to reject the person of Jesus?

What are the point of the mighty works of Christ? To reveal a different sort of life. Each miracle or sign pulls back the curtain of our own reality to show us a glimpse of true life.

Eyes can be healed, ears can be healed, leprosy can be healed, fever can be healed, and ultimately death can be reversed. These are not mere magic tricks, but instead a revealing of the person and Kingdom of Jesus.

Some are completely unwilling to receive such works. They see what they can, but God has not given to them a deeper understanding.

They are the “wise and understanding” from our text. The proud, those who can’t fathom a greater life in Jesus.

God gives truth to some.

God, through Jesus, reveals Himself to those who are like little children. And it has been God’s will to do so.

How might we define such people?

Teachable. Not dependent on their own understanding.

Kids come with no knowledge of what to do.

Those things that are most self explanatory, kids approach with no knowledge.

Obedient. They hear and they do, not talked out of it.

We hear the command of God and are ready to obey until we sit and think about it.

Trustful. Their faith is whole and complete.

Complete dependence. The tightest grip any child has is around the neck of mom and dad.

It is to these people that God reveals Himself, and they are capable of receiving Him, not because of anything in them, but instead because of a lacking in them.

There is a dependence upon the person and Kingdom of Christ because there is the recognition of lack.

Not a lack of value as a person, but a lack of righteousness that gives entry into such a Kingdom.

Challenge here is twofold.

First, recognize your own pride, your own unwillingness to receive Christ as a child receives nearly anything.

Second, recognize the childlikeness in those around you.

Teach your kids while they may still be teachable.

2. Such revelation gives Jesus reason to thank the Father.

How do we respond to such news? The Father, in Jesus, reveals Himself to some and withholds Himself from others. What is your reaction to such a thought?

Perhaps we bristle? Perhaps we complain? Perhaps there is some revulsion to such a thought?

John Calvin- “God frequently repeats that his judgments are a deep abyss, but we plunge with headlong violence into that depth, and if there is any thing that does not please us, we gnash our teeth, or murmur against him, and many even break out into open blasphemies.”

Again, we come as the learned, willing to lecture God, rather than to put ourselves under His teaching and revealing and receive from Him what ought to elicit our praise.

Notice the words of Jesus here- I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hide and reveal.

Why would this draw praise and thanksgiving from the Son? It’s there in the words of the prayer.

The Father, Lord of all creation, heaven and earth, controls all and does what He knows to be right and in line with His character.

Jesus sees this and finds it to be right. And not just right, but worthy of thanks.

We can thank God for the things that we like about Him, but can we thank Him for the things that make no sense?

Kid receiving a punishment or consequence and saying thank you for taking an interest in my development as a person. Maybe later in life, but not in the moment.

Jesus here communicates a difficult truth- namely that God’s hiding and revealing, through the Son, is what brings knowledge and thus right relationship with God.

I wonder if we, like Jesus, can say that we thank the Father for this truth?

Can we see the revealed truths of God, no matter how difficult, and after thanking Him for the reality of who He is and what He does, worship and praise Him all the more passionately?

Hold fast and hard to what God has given us in His own knowledge and wisdom. Trust the source, not the recipient.

Now then, we come to the better known part of our text.

3. The worn down are encouraged to come to Jesus.

Remember the context- relationship with God is hidden from the wise and understanding, and given or revealed to those who are like children.

Jesus calls some to Himself here, not all, but some- Come to me- and then He qualifies who may come to Him.

Those who are laboring and are heavy laden, meaning they have a weight about them.

Come to me, those who don’t have life figured out, who cannot quite crack it.

Come to me those who have tried hard to rid themselves of the burdens of life, but find themselves with the pile growing larger.

Come to me those who are worn out by the struggles of situations.

Come to me children facing complete exhaustion.

Our kids melting down.

Scott Sauls- “He did not come for the good people who feel no need for him, but for humble people who know that without him, they are sunk. For those humble people, the reward is not given at the finish line, but rather at the starting line. Whereas religion presumes to work for the favor of God, life in Christ works from a favor that’s already been given by God freely in Christ.”

Perhaps the best news- Jesus will receive you. If this is how you come to Him, empty and needy, He will not disappoint.

And notice how He receives- not by shaming you, not by telling you that you got yourself into this situation, so you can get yourself out of it. That’s not His character.

He is gentle- lowly in heart. He promises rest. But rest might not come the way that we expect it.

He doesn’t rid us of a yoke. Yoke signifies burden, it signifies work. There is a right burden and a wrong burden for life.

Acts 15:10- Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

Giving believers the task of keeping the OT law, which cannot be kept, and was given for the purpose of showing mankind that perfection cannot be kept.

Not only keeping the law, but also manmade interpretations of the law.

Daniel Doriani- “The cure for a heavy burden is not to have no burden, but a light burden, the right burden. Jesus knows the right burden. He offers rest not by inviting us to do nothing, but by leading us to the right activities. Two things wear an active person down: having too much work of the wrong kind and having no work at all. Jesus is gentle. He gives the right kind of work.”

Jesus gives us that for which we were created. Removes us from a life of meaningless tasks with meaningless goals, and puts us to work in God’s Kingdom.

Life as it was originally created to be lived.

How do we come to Jesus as He has invited?

Joseph Parker- “I question whether there are many here who have not tried to wash their hands when they ought to have known that it was their heart that needed cleansing. Today, bring me your diaries, your vow-books, your plans, your programmes, your habits, your beginnings and your endings- bring them to me and we will burn them in one common blaze and begin again by being nothing at all but little children in God’s house. You want rest, and you can never secure that prize by your own effort. There is not a soul here that does not sigh for rest. There is no rest to be had except through Jesus Christ. The restful alone can give rest, peace alone can give peace. He will self-poise us, set our nature in its proper balance, bring all our faculties into harmonious relation and interplay, and thus he will establish us in the comfort and quietness of his own peace.”

Is there a childlikeness in you? Is there a brokenness within you that you are unable to fix? Has life for you been aimed in meaningless directions? What will you do? Where will you find rest? Only in the Fount of rest, the Fount of peace, the Fount of revelation.

He is gentle, He is lowly in heart, and He promises rest and a light and right yoke for those who will come. Let’s pray.