THE HEART OF JESUS IS GENTLE AND LOWLY
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MATTHEW 11:28-30
MATTHEW 11:28-30
Last week we started a series about the heart of God. We talked about how I believe this is going to help up experience His presence more richly and see who we are in Christ more truly. I believe it is going to cause us to move to obedience to His calls on our lives. I believe that it is the first step to restoring the proper fear of the Lord in our lives.
Last week, we talked about the heart of God that desires to be with His people. How the demands of holiness and the power of His presence has not changed since Mt Sinai. We talked about how His grace and mercy in His presence has not changed since then either. How the only thing that changed was Jesus. Jesus changed everything by imputing onto me His righteousness so that we may with confidence, not by our works, approach the throne of God and be seated with Him at the right hand of the Father. How Jesus bought all of that and makes all of that possible.
I want to shift and look at the heart of Jesus as we approach Easter. One of the eye opening things that we will find in this study and one day, I intend to teach more thoroughly on the topic but it can not be the heart of Jesus and not be the heart of the Father. It is the same heart. It is the same set of desires and motivations.
It important to know when the Bible speaks of the heart, it rarely speaks of the physical heart.
It was essentially the whole man, with all his attributes, physical, intellectual and psychological, of which the Hebrew thought and spoke, and the heart was conceived of as the governing centre for all of these. It is the heart which makes a man, or a beast, what he is, and governs all his actions (Pr. 4:23). Character, personality, will, mind are modern terms which all reflect something of the meaning of ‘heart’ in its biblical usage.
One of my favorite commentaries said, Its the motivation center from which decisions are made.”
So, when we talk about discovering the heart of God or Jesus we are talking about seeing what motivates Him to take the actions that He took. Either in His life, or His death, or right now. Its looking deeper to see Him for who He really is.
Dane Ortlund describes this pursuit as “The Christian life, from one angle, is the long journey of letting our natural assumptions of who God is, over many decades, fall away, being slowly replaced with God’s own insistence on who He is.”
This is what we are seeking together. To not see God through lens of past pain or false doctrine but to see Him as the Word of God says and shows us that He is.
And what a better place to start than Jesus’ own words to describe His heart. Its the only place in scripture that Jesus describes His heart. How He describes what motivates Him. Who He is insisting that He really is.
Read Matthew 11:28-30
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.”
This is a beautiful and truthful passage that we need to dive into is one of the greatest conditional promises of the Lord.
Yes, I said it. This is a promise from Jesus that requires us to do something in order to receive it. There is an invitation and a promise stemming from the heart of Jesus. He is not a dictator that demands obedience. As you will see He is gentle and lowly at His heart.
I want to start by looking at the words that Jesus used to describe His heart.
GENTLE AND LOWLY
GENTLE AND LOWLY
Remember, this is what Jesus says is at the core of His motivation center. His character, His will, His personality, Jesus describes Himself what motivates Him as gentle and lowly.
The Greek word here for gentle is also in Matthew 5:5
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Its the Zechariah 9:9
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.
This word plainly means gentle, meek, mild.
It means that at the heart of Jesus is not a demanding tyrant that looks down at you.
It means that Jesus is not harsh or mean-spirited.
It means that Jesus at His very heart sets the example of bending down and washing the feet of His disciples.
It means that when Jesus is faced with Thomas who is full of doubt, Jesus doesn’t degrade him or push Him away. He opens himself to be exactly what he needed in that moment. Thomas was met with the gentle heart of Christ.
The psalmist captured the heart of Jesus in Psalm 3:3
Psalm 3:3 (ESV)
But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I just love that picture that Jesus takes His hands on the sides of my face and gently lifts my head.
The second word Jesus uses to describe His heart is lowly.
This word lowly is very similar to gentle but it has a meaning of a person who willingly lowers them self below the position they deserve.
What I think that Jesus was saying and showing to us is that He is the Son of God and is worthy of the highest praise and position but He willingly allowed Himself to be brought to a low place. Like what Philippians 2:5-8
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
One writer says, “The point in saying that Jesus is lowly is that He is accessible. For all His resplendent glory and dazzling holiness, His supreme uniqueness and otherness, no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ. No prerequisites. No hoops to jump through. The minimum bar to be enfolded into the embrace of Jesus is simply: open yourself to Him.”
Jesus is expressing that at His heart He is not mean or condescending. He is not so highly exalted that He closes Himself off to you. At His heart, Jesus is gentle and lowly.
However, Jesus can be gentle and capable of great ferocity. Jesus can be approachable and relatable and still be holy and worth of all honor and praise.
But I think that what Jesus is trying to show us is that we can not cast onto Him the way that human beings would respond to our many failures and our sinful nature. That while human beings have limits with you, Jesus does not. That while humans will tire of dealing with you, Jesus will not. Jesus is saying that His heart, His motivation center is gentle and lowly.
But who is Jesus gentle and lowly to??
Those who labor and are heavy laden.
LABOR AND HEAVY LADEN
LABOR AND HEAVY LADEN
Those who labor and are completely spent. Those who have worked hard under their own strength at power. Those who strive to make it to the next promotion to find happiness. Those working to buy that next best thing to see if it satisfies them.
Those who labor are those trying to earn God’s favor or earn salvation by being good enough.
Those who labor are those who haven’t put their trust in the Lord and are just trying to do it all themselves.
Those who are heavy laden describes a person that has been hauling around a burden too heavy for them to carry. Those who are trying to handle it all themselves. Those who have placed the burden that Christ carried back on themselves.
Those who are weighed down by guilt and shame or addiction. Those who are trying to take Jesus off of the cross and pay for their sins themselves.
Those who are so heavy laden with stress, worry, and anxiety that it causes physical problems or physical exhaustion.
Those who are burdened with the rules that the modern day Pharisees of religion try to place on us to earn favor.
If you feel this way, If you recognise yourself in this description of labor and heavy laden. Then take heart!
The heart of Jesus, the motivation of Jesus for you is to be gentle and approachable. He is not coming in strong and shaming you. He is not waiting for you to unburden yourself or clean yourself up or beat that addiction before coming to you!
Though you may feel beaten down and crawling, His heart is to bend down and be the lifter of your head.
And He makes an invitation and a promise to you.
The invitation is
COME TO ME; TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU.
COME TO ME; TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU.
The first invitation that He makes is to come to Him....
So, simple of a thing...
But...
Do we??
Do we really come to Him for all of our needs, for our satisfaction?
Do we come to Him first or as a last resort? Do we come to Him only when we can’t figure it out?
Do we really stop and bring to Him the things that we are pursuing or laboring for?
Do we really bring Him our burdens or do we take satisfaction in the possibility that we might be able to take credit for defeating that weight? Like there is some award for who suffers the most and never asked for help.
What about rest? That is the promise of this verse.
How many of us come to Him for rest? Not just physical or mental rest, but rest for the deepest depths of your soul!
How many of us turn to so many other things of this world to hope that it gives us rest but it turns out we are just as tired than when we started?
Jesus’ first invitation is simple. Stop turning to the things of this world or fleshly things to find satisfaction or rest.
Just give this a try! Instead of turning to Jesus last, try turning to Jesus first!
He is not asking you to come to Him to find condemnation for the ways you have messed it up before. He is asking you to meet the gentle and approachable heart of Jesus. He wants to give you rest.
The second invitation of Jesus here is to “take my yoke upon you”.
Kristi McLelland is a local professor and she writes great studies about the culture and historical context of Jesus’ day.
She says that one of the times in Israel, she was talking to a Rabbi. That Rabbi told her that the way that a rabbi interprets scripture and applies them to their lives is called their yoke. Its specific for that rabbi. In Jesus’ day, there were two major rabbis and their yokes or interpretation and application of the Mosaic law were different than each other. And when you wanted to become a disciple of that Rabbi, you would symbolically come and take their yoke upon you. Saying, I’m going to interpret scripture like you do and I’m going to apply scripture to my life the way that you teach me.
So, the second invitation of Jesus is to submit yourself to the way that Jesus teaches scripture and the way that He applied them to His life. He is inviting us to become His disciple and take His specific yoke upon ourselves.
He is inviting you to come to Him, submit yourself to His teaching and His example. and apply them to your life!
Dan Doriani
So Jesus is gentle not because he makes no demands, but because he makes proper demands. He is meek because he gives us rest from bad laws and forgives us when we break good ones. But again, gentleness isn’t quite what we assume; it comes with high demands.
But Jesus clearly says in verse 30 that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Not that there is no yoke and no burden. But that the yoke and burden of Jesus’ teaching and obeying His commands is wayyyy lighter and wayyyy easier than the way of this world! Than the way you have been doing things. The way of doing it yourself.
So, Jesus is saying come to me without fear of condemnation or mean-spirit. Come to me and not be afraid that I might show you that I’m gentle but inside I’m mad at you. That is NOT the heart of Jesus.
He is saying “Come to me” “Study my teachings and study how I lived my life and try to imitate that.”
He is not pushing you away. He is not running from your dirtiness. He does not cringe at your past.
He is gentlest of friends. He is the most approachable person you have ever met.
Do this and He promises rest.
Rest for your soul.
REST. REST FOR YOUR SOUL.
REST. REST FOR YOUR SOUL.
This rest is a continuous theme in scripture. Its been talked about and demonstrated for centuries.
Its the same rest that God took on the 7th day of creation.
Its the same rest that God gave in the ten commandments telling us to remember the sabbath and keep it holy.
Its the same green pastures and still waters that our Shepherd leads us into rest.
Its the same rest that we will enter into when we leave this life and step into eternity.
Its the eternal life that Jesus prayed for us in the garden. That we would have eternal life knowing the Father and Jesus Christ.
This is Jesus’ end of the promise. This is Jesus’ response to you coming to Him and trying to live like He taught us to live.
Jesus’ promise is that HE will GIVE you rest.
We often fall into the idea that there are ways that WE find rest or that WE sabbath. But Jesus says come to me and I will give you rest.
Rest and Sabbath without Jesus is not what He desires for you.
He wants to bring you rest for your very soul. Is that enough for you to come to Him? Is that enough for you to quit striving to do it yourself? Have you reached that point of giving up trying yet?
If you have, if you are ready, then a gentle and lowly Jesus stands ready to give it to you.
Invite the band.
Are you ready to stop striving and laboring yourself? Are you tired of trying to earn more love from your heavenly Father? Are you tired of feeling like its up to you to accomplish it all?
Are you tired of shouldering the burden of life or pain or addiction or religious rules? Are you tired of feeling like you are your own provider and sustainer? Are you tired?
Will you let Jesus lift your head today with His perfect gentleness? Will you let Him unload you?
Invitation to met Jesus at the alter.
Reminder for Christians that we are learning the yoke of Jesus and that our obendience should be that our hearts are gentle and lowly for those we are laboring and trying to do it themselves. Our hearts should be approachable to those who are heavy laden with guilt, shame and addiction. We should be exemplifying the heart of Christ those those who not coming to Jesus for rest because we have all been there and the goal is to bring them to Jesus. Our mission afterall is to connect them to Jesus. And its really hard to do that when His heart is gentle and lowly while ours is harsh, critical and judgmental.
If we are learning the heart of Jesus may we also reflect the heart of Jesus.