Jesus, the one who takes our burdens

Good news and bad news

“I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news”...I already hear some of you tensing up as I say that. When we are told this we are HOPING that that good news will overwhelm the bad news. That we won’t even really worry about the bad news when we hear the good news. Jesus as He has been describing to us the kingdom mission, been giving us what we might consider good news and bad news.

Last week Jesus said there would be difficulty ahead and we have to choose if we fear God who controls body and soul or the world that only controls the body. Jesus tells us that there is no “believing” in Jesus without submitting to Christ and His authority, without dying to ourselves. That as much as our heart tells us “live your truth” and “do what makes you happy” Jesus tells us “you need to die to yourself and follow me instead.” But Jesus also gives us the example of endurance and the prize that comes with it. We are storing up for ourselves eternity. Lifelong surrender to Christ for something greater after this life. Jesus again is going to mix some difficult truths with some of the most beautiful news we could hear.

So…I have some good news and some bad news.

Jesus tells us that we are going to have doubts, that believers won’t always be welcomed and will face severe pressure, and that those who aren’t willing to believe the truth will suffer the consequences. But then the good news…Jesus is gentle and lowly and He will give us rest from our burdens

Gentle and lowly

Now, usually we would start from the beginning of passage and move our way through it but right now I want to start from the last part of what Jesus says because it will frame the rest of what we discuss. Jesus in v. 28-30 tells us an important truth about His heart. Now disclaimer, some of these concepts I’m using are from a book called “Gentle and lowly” by Dane Ortlund, and it really dives deep into the heart of Christ. And let me tell you, it is a book that will make you weep about how much Jesus cares for you. But back to “gentle and lowly”

This is significant. Because in all of the Gospels, in all of the things that Jesus says, this is the only time that Jesus tells us about His own heart. There are a lot of things Jesus could tell us about His heart, that it is joyful, forgiving, demanding, generous…but the two things that Jesus identifies are that He is gentle and lowly.

And if you are to think about what a Savior looks like, what Jesus’ listeners thought about a Savior, the first things we would say are not “gentle and lowly”. We might say courageous, we might say mighty, we might say authoritative. But gentle and lowly would be lower down the list.

But what do these mean?

When we think of gentle we think of one who isn’t ready to pounce on our every word or action, not over sensitive or angry. But one who sympathizes with our struggle, in fact, Jesus is more gentle with our failures than any other person the world has ever known. “The posture most natural to Him is not a pointed finger but open arms.”

When we think of lowly we can also think of humble. But that isn’t enough for what this is telling us about Jesus. He is one who “condescends to us”. He makes Himself accessible to us so that we can come to Him just as we are. The one who created all of creation, who is so powerful that for us to see Him means instant death…calls us to Himself with all of our failures and faults. Who, more than any other person, desires for us to come to Him.

This is important is because as Jesus talks to John the Baptist, when He tells us about the troubles to come, and when He shows us the consequence of sin... He also has in mind His desire to carry their burdens. So that is how we are going to frame this.

Because here is the great news:

1. Jesus takes our doubts and worries - “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”

2. Jesus walks us through our troubles - “Take up my yoke and learn from me

2. Jesus brings us forgiveness - “You will find rest for your souls”

Jesus takes our doubts and worries

Jesus has just finished giving instructions to His disciples, and as He teaches and preaches in many towns John the Baptist gets word of what Jesus has been doing and He asks Jesus a question. “Are you the Messiah or should I expect someone after you.”

Now wait…wasn’t John the Baptist who believed himself unworthy of even baptizing Jesus? Of even untying Jesus sandals? Why does John ask this question?

Well, we need to consider John’s condition. He is in prison, and has been for a while, he knows he might be dead soon. He spend his whole ministry telling people that the Messiah was on its way and he believed that Jesus was the one he had been preaching about. Matthew says “John heard in prison what the Christ was doing”, the name “Christ” is “anointed one” or “Messiah”. John probably had some preconceived notions of what a Savior would look like. That would “set the prisoner free”, bring judgment on their oppressors in Rome, take His place as king of the Jews. He might even be hoping that Jesus could set him free from prison. He may also be thinking about his own mission, did I “make a way for the Messiah” only for it to be the wrong person? And so John has some doubts.

We read this now and we might say “seriously? Why are you doubting this…I mean you are John the Baptist!” But Jesus gives us two important answers to John’s doubts:

Have faith in who I am

Don’t lose heart because the message of the Gospel is different than you are expecting

Jesus tells these men to report to John “what you hear and see” or could also put “my words and deed”. He’s telling them, “Go and tell John that I’m the real deal.”

-But He’s also pointing back to the Old Testament and showing Him “I’m doing exactly as was prophesied”. John would have known the prophecies by memory

Now what all these passages also have is judgment connected to them.

Jesus is telling John “I’m performing one part, the other will come but not just yet.

But then Jesus also says “Blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me” or you could say “isn’t tripped up by me”

-Jesus is telling John not to get tripped up by His own preconceived notions of a Messiah, but to trust that He is the one John had been hoping for.

-Even after knowing who Jesus is and what He does we can get "tripped up" by what we believe Jesus should look like. Our context will always have an affect on how we interpret the Bible, whether we would like to believe that or not, that is the truth. We can create in our heads this idea of what we want Jesus to be for us. Whether it is a blonde hair, blue eyed Jesus, a Jesus that agrees with us but disagrees with those who have a different opinion than us, a Jesus that always loves and never speaks judgment, a Jesus that nitpicks the sins we have an easy time denying and ignores the once we have difficulty with. But when we read Scripture we have to believe all of who Jesus tells us He is.

-We can also feel “tripped up” because what we expected God to do in our lives is different than what He does. “I thought things would always be easy if I was a Christian”, “I thought that I would struggle with sin as much”, “I thought I wouldn’t feel as depressed or anxious or filled with doubt”.

What Jesus shows us in His response to John is that there is a place for doubt, depression, frustration, and certainly temptation in the life of a believer. We see the greatest of prophets who struggled with this. We see it here with John. Elijah the prophet asked God if he could just die. Moses was anxious about being a leader. This passage shows how Jesus compassionately comes to encourage us in our doubts and remind us that we can lay our doubts and worries onto Him.

-Jesus shows compassion on John, He doesn’t show frustration that John would doubt. He answers his questions, gives clarity, and reminds him of the hope that he has in the Gospel.

And so as Jesus sure’s up John’s doubts the crowds are listening and they might start to think “man, John is losing it, He is starting to doubt Jesus?”

And then the God who hears our thoughts turns around and responds to these inward criticisms.

Don’t you hate it when someone reads your mind and responds before you even have a chance to say anything? My wife really has an uncanny ability to do that...

So Jesus says to them…(read the passage)

What is Jesus saying?

-John isn’t like a reed that is easily swayed by the wind, by public opinion. In fact, it was John’s total refusal to follow religious leaders that people went out and sought him.

-John wasn’t like these religious leaders all dressed up and speaking down on them.

-They went out to the hot desert in order to hear someone who had words from God.

-But then Jesus says John was even more than a prophet but was one prophesied in the OT, to “make prepare the way of the Lord,” a task given to him by God.

Jesus is telling the crowd “don’t doubt John’s message, in fact remember just why you came and followed him, because of who he was foreshadowing!

-Because just like Jesus is the person that He said He was, so was John.

-But doubt and worry can sometimes overwhelm us, it doesn’t take much, just a little inkling of doubt can overwhelm our senses. In sports there is a term called “the yips”. The yips is when you start to experience this inability to perform simple tasks of your profession. For a basketball player it might be making a layup, for a golf player it is often being able to hit a short putt, or in baseball some catchers can’t throw the ball back to the pitcher correctly. You get so in your head that you can’t make the most simple plays that you have trained hours and hours getting right.

Sometimes we can get a faith yip. It can happen for one reason or another. Lose a family member, you’ve been hurt by someone or by a church, there is a faith question that you want the answer to but feel like you can’t find. These might make you feel like a bad Christian, make you feel like God doesn’t love you, feel like “if I just believed enough I wouldn’t worry about this. But our faith in Jesus isn’t about “how much” faith we have, it is who we have it in.

Jesus comes along side us and says “come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” He says “I’ll take your doubts, I’ll take your worries, I’ll give you rest.” Rest comes in trusting that Jesus has plenty of enough faith where we are lacking. Remember, it is the faith of a mustard seed that moves mountain, God says “just give me the faith that you have!”

But then Jesus continues, and he moves on to talk more about John the baptist, not just about his doubts, but about his troubles. And we see that...

Jesus walks us through our troubles

Then, Jesus says “truly I tell you”, this identifies His next words are significant. He tells them there has been NO ONE born greater (not Joseph, or Moses, or Elijah, or David) than John, YET, the least in the kingdom is greater than he? What?!

-What Jesus is telling them is not that John will have a lesser reward than others, but that he won’t get to experience the kingdom of God in the same way that those who experience Jesus death and resurrection will.

-John is the end of the "law and the prophets" as Jesus comes to fulfill it. The prophets were limited but Jesus will make clear that which was fuzzy in the OT. And Jesus says "if you are willing to accept the difficult than you will be greater than John!

-We sometimes look back and say "These people saw all these great miracles, and God was healing them, and I wish it was still like that." I think this causes us to miss out on the incredible blessings we have in the grace of Jesus and because of that we ignore when God does incredible things for us.

-This is why Jesus tells us we must be “willing to accept”. Jesus shows there were many who were unwilling to accept. He talks about His own generation as children who are invited to play a game but they don’t want to plan any game that has been offered. Because it didn’t matter the messenger God brought they continued to reject them.

And these people that reject the Gospel will bring troubles. John the Baptist suffered violence and people tried to stop his message. But then these same men rejected Jesus for the exact opposite reasons of John. John they said had a demon because of his ascetic lifestyle, while Jesus hung around the sinners and ate with them and they called him a glutton and drunk!

So we have two types of troubles: Learning to follow Jesus and the people who oppose the faithful

Jesus challenges us, when we face troubles and when we are confused, to truly try and grasp and understand His words. Because we take these difficult sayings (like some of what we read here) and oftentimes it is easier to just pass by them rather than wrestle with them and recognize how it impacts us. But if these are just words than we should wrestle with them! And that means we have to wrestle with our own hearts and actions

That is why Jesus says “take up my yoke and learn from me, because I’m gentle and lowly in heart.”

But how do we wrestle with difficult truths and how do we deal with difficult people? Isn’t it too confusing somtimes? But listen to what Matthew 11:25-27 says...

Jesus praises His Father because the truth of His Word is NOT out of reach for the everyday person, in fact, it is right in our hand. He tells us the entrance to the kingdom of God isn’t found by being wise enough or knowing enough things. Actually, these will be the ones who are tripped up.

I have a riddle for you. How much dirt is in a hole that is 5 feet long by 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Now some of you are sitting there thinking deeply about the mathematics about a hole that size, but I’m going to tell you to stop now because the answer is “there is no dirt in a hole.”

See, oftentimes the key to solving a good riddle is to not over-think it, sometimes the hardest people can get a riddle wrong for this reason.

Jesus tells us, “I have the answer, just come to me”, “take up my yoke and learn from me”

-Jesus doesn't just give us wisdom, He is "wisdom incarnate"

-Jesus says "learn from me", He takes us by the hand and guides us. Jesus does not call us to the law but to Himself.

But sometimes we don’t just face these outward troubles and battles, sometimes we face our own inner sins and faults. But in this we learn that...

Jesus bring us forgiveness

After Jesus is done identifying those who attacked their message, He then directs His attention to three cities that didn't repent and in which Jesus had performed miracles for them to respond in faith to Him. To these cities He says “woe to you”, a woe is a warning, but a warning with a desire to see repentance.

He mentions these three cities. Chorazin, a city Jesus went to even though we have no record of it. Just a reminder the Gospels only cover a brief portion of His ministry.

Bethsaida, where Jesus had given sight to a blind man and where Jesus had fed the five thousand.

To these he relates them to two cities that had been condemned by prophets in the OT, Tyre and Sidon. These cities were judged by God yet they were not given the same opportunities in terms of miracles as Chorazin and Bethsaida. And he says, “how much more should you have repented then Tyre and Sidon. You think you are better off than the Gentiles who hadn’t heard the Gospel but you are in fact much worse because you heard it and weren’t changed by it.

-we also hear this in 2 Peter 2:20-21 “For if, having escaped the world’s impurity through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in these things and defeated, the last state is worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy command delivered to them.”

Then Jesus talks to the city of Capernaum, a city that Jesus went to many times throughout his ministry. He doesn't give them a "woe" but rather says "will you be exalted to heaven?" Jesus is pointing to the fact that they have a very high view of their own righteousness and felt confident they were going to be in heaven. But in fact that was the opposite from the truth, they would go down to "Hades". Hades is the underworld, the lowest of low place, standing in opposite of heaven which is the highest of highs. Those who are in eternal torment rather than eternal joy.

-Jesus quotes from Isaiah 14:13-15 “You said to yourself, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the gods’ assembly, in the remotest parts of the North. I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you will be brought down to Sheol into the deepest regions of the Pit.”

-When we set our own rules of how we get to heaven, we are going to be sorely disappointed in the end. There are many who like to say "well, I think God is like this" or "I like to think that if you just do your best than God will accept you", or "well you know if someone follows any religion it will probably get you back to God". That is doing what Isaiah says, you are trying to set up your own thrown. But Jesus is very clear, "I am the way and the truth and the life." We can make whatever rules we would like to make but that doesn't change God's plan of salvation. When we start to create our own way of salvation we start to think we can be exalted to heaven but in truth you will go down to Hades. When we think we can sustain our own salvation outside of Jesus that will be what leads us to fall.

Jesus is reminding us that He didn't do works so that people could think He was cool, or to think if they follow Him they could do it to. He performed the miracles so heal body and soul, to receive repentance from sinners. He wanted them to turn away from evil. He is calling them to die to themselves and follow Him.

-This all may seem grim because in it we get the wrath of Christ and that can make us uncomfortable. But Christ's mercy can't be separated from His wrath. The greater we understanding Christ's righteous wrath against sin, the more we truly understand the fulness of His mercy towards us. That even knowing all of our failures and sins that He is more gentle and loving toward us than anyone we will ever know. That His love for us doesn’t change based off of our love for Him, or how “sinful” we are, or how successful we seem. His love for us, His kindness towards us, never fades.

-And if we remember that Jesus is gentle and lowly we remember that however much we think we love and care for our spouse, children, friend, neighbor…Jesus cares for them so much more. God loves the unbeliever more than you do, He went to the cross for their sins, for your sins, for the sins of the world. We couldn’t do that!

-What is unforgivable is our rejection of His forgiveness towards us, that is what has lead to the downfall of these cities. They tried to create their own way of salvation apart from Jesus.

But we don't have to "create" a way of salvation. We don't have to have some special knowledge, we don't have to "do enough good things", we don't have to play this guessing game of religion hoping we find the right one. Jesus says "I have taken your burden, I have brought your sin onto myself, you are now free to live by faith that I have taken it. Why would we keep a burden that has been taken from us?

-This is why Jesus says “you will find rest for your souls” in Him.

Conclusion

Jesus tells them in v. 28 "Come to me". The puritan Thomas Godwin says "He is more glad of us than we can be of Him.

Jesus comes passionately to us and says "I will take your heavy burden, I will help you through your trials, you will not have to worry about your soul when you are in me." Like a child that rests on your chest as they fall asleep, that child feels safe, secure, loved. They don't have any worries at that moment. Jesus becomes that for those who are in Him.

-Jesus removes us from the meaninglessness of life, the fear and anxiety of choosing our own path, the uncertainty of circumstances, and He brings us into His presence.

We can trust Jesus because He comes for our good rather than for His own.

-Sometimes we have a hard time trusting. The world makes us skeptical of authority figures, it makes us question their motives.

-He doesn't comes trying to prove how wise He is, trying to "prove" how humble He is or how much greater He than humanity. It isn't from a place of self-importance, rather He comes so that He may take our burden and give us rest.

-In order for us to receive this, though, we have to FULLY trust in Him. We can't hold on to wordly trust.

-But sometimes we try and hold on to these heavy burdens that Jesus tries to take from us.

***"The Christian life boils down to two steps: 1. Go to Jesus. 2. See #1. That place in your life where you feel most defeated, He is there; He lives there, right there, and His heart for you, not on the other side of it but in that darkness, is gentle and lowly."***