07.09.2023 - Coming to Jesus

Scripture: Matthew 11:16-19, Matthew 11:25-30

Matthew 11:16–19 NIV

16 “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: 17 “ ‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

Matthew 11:25–30 NIV

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. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. 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. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Coming to Jesus

07.09.2023

Children’s Moment:

Theme

Jesus will bear your burdens.

Object

A brick or some other heavy object

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." Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

How much do you think this brick weighs? Well, all bricks don't weigh exactly the same, but the average brick weighs about five pounds. That isn't very heavy, is it? You could easily pick up a brick. Do you think you could pick up this brick up and hold it with your arm straight out to the side of you like this? (Demonstrate it.) You might be able to hold it for a minute or two, but do you think you could hold it all day? No way! The longer you hold it, the heavier it feels.

That same thing is true of the burdens we carry around with us. What are some of those burdens? Here are a few examples: some of you may be having trouble with your school work, perhaps you are having trouble at home, perhaps you may have a serious illness, you may be feeling guilty about something you have done, your family may be having financial difficulties, or maybe one of your playmates has been making fun of you.

That is a pretty heavy load to have to carry by yourself, isn't it? Well the good news is you don't have to carry it alone! In our Bible lesson for today, Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Then he went on to say, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Jesus is our helper. Sometimes we hold on to our burdens and try to carry them ourselves, but Jesus will help us, if we will let Him.

Whenever your load is too heavy, remember the words to this song:

I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus!

I cannot bear my burdens alone.

I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus!

Jesus can help me, Jesus alone.

Father, sometimes our burdens are more than we can bear. Help us to remember that Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." In his name we pray. Amen.

Coming to Jesus

What do we do with Jesus?

Success often means being in the right place at the right time and being prepared to do the right thing. It is not easy to figure that out, but as we learned last week, we don’t have to figure it out ourselves. Jesus will guide us if we let Him.

Last week our scripture taught us about welcoming Jesus into our lives, and I challenged you to find small ways to welcome Jesus daily. I hope you are finding ways to do that through prayer, reading our Bibles, worship, or maybe even sitting quietly and listening to God. Spending that time with Jesus helps fill us with His Spirit and knowledge of Him. We may be tempted to spend our time on everything else but Jesus. However, if we overcome that temptation and invite Jesus into our lives, He will make all the time in the world for us.

It can be both exciting and confusing when we come into His presence. The Old Testament is filled with people encountering God and being filled with fear. Even in the New Testament, more people were confused by Jesus than those who knew how to have a relationship with Him.

Our scripture today begins with a strange illustration. Jesus said that His generation was like children playing make-believe games in the marketplace, pretending to have weddings and funerals, and doing the kinds of dances accompanying those very different kinds of celebrations. Jesus compared it to John the Baptist, who came with the bad news that everyone was sinning and needed to repent, and they refused to listen to him because it was too sad - like a funeral. Jesus came and celebrated God’s kingdom coming into the world, and they said he spent too much time celebrating and did not take the world's troubles seriously.

God sent both John the Baptist and Jesus into the world with those messages, and nobody wanted to hear them. They knew about God but did not recognize that Jesus was God, even when Jesus was right there with them.

What Jesus offers us is not natural or ordinary by our worldly standards. It is supernatural and extraordinary. If you have ever wondered what it means to spend time with Jesus, our scripture today is for you. It tells us that Jesus wants us to come to Him and receive what He has for us - true rest.

Our Stories

The people who lived during the first century were not more blind or foolish than us in their inability to see Jesus. Jesus taught us that we cannot recognize Him unless God reveals Him. We don’t find God on our own. He finds us. Without God, we are just playing make-believe games. We depend on Jesus seeking us out even as we seek Him.

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Many people describe our lives as a story God is writing. We might even think we are writing our own story. But we often just try to get through each week or each day, hoping we will eventually figure out what it all means when we get to Heaven. That is natural. However, Jesus calls us into something more. He calls us to come to Him and discover the story of our lives that He is writing. Just because we cannot discover it alone does not mean we cannot be shown.

If we just read this scripture passage today by itself, it could leave us with a sense that this might be a collection of extra teachings that need to be put somewhere. However, if you keep reading, you will discover that Jesus is leading up to teaching about the Sabbath Day and how it should be celebrated. The Jewish leaders had taught that the Sabbath Day should be treated with rigid reverence. Jesus taught that it was a joyous day to celebrate what God had done in our lives.

God commands us to celebrate the Sabbath weekly, and I like to think of those celebrations as chapters of our story, with beginnings and endings. Each week, we return to God and reflect on the story of our lives to celebrate all He has done and prepare for the next chapter we are heading toward.

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Preparing for Challenges Ahead

Spending time with Jesus prepares us for the challenges ahead of us. Many of our challenges only require a quick, daily check-in. However, there are times when we need to plan further ahead, and it is not just when bad things happen. Good things can create important challenges as well. The joy of a new baby in the family, for example, is something that will make you plan out more than a week ahead. New jobs and retirements and other life changes do too. So do unexpected health situations. Sometimes, God brings you a new neighbor or friend that He wants you to care for and disciple, which also takes some planning and preparation.

In every situation, we need direction and teaching, or, as my father-in-law prays for every day: wisdom, guidance, and grace. I like to think of it as asking for the strength to take the next step God is asking me to and the humility (or wisdom, or faith) to ask God for help before I get into trouble. This can all seem exhausting. When we stop to look at the road ahead of us that Jesus leads us on, we see the mountains we have to climb and the rivers we have to cross. How is Jesus taking our burdens if we are the ones taking orders from Him all the time?

That is where Jesus comes in with this lesson about trading the things we carry.

Ending with Reflection and Gratitude

Jesus has things he wants us to carry for Him, and He wants to carry the things we have that we cannot and should not carry ourselves. The challenge is figuring out what part is our responsibility. One of the pastors I worked for years ago taught me that most of the time, we don’t need to see and understand every detail of our work with God. We need to be shown where our part is.

Sometimes it makes us feel small when we measure our strength against our challenges. Sometimes God allows us to feel small to help us get a lower perspective. When our head is in the clouds, we often miss God's incredible work around our feet. The Bible teaches us that God is bigger than all of Creation, and Jesus taught us that He can get low enough to know every sparrow and count every hair on our heads. Some of us may have a few less than we did several years ago, but every hair has its own story, and God is involved in it.

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When we get low enough to see and celebrate all the little things God has done, our perspective shifts, and suddenly the mountains don’t look as tall as they used to, nor do the rivers look as deep. The heavy burden Jesus handed us seems much lighter when we begin to recount all the ways He helped us go and grow through the trials we have faced. The tasks seem simpler when we recognize that Jesus never sends us anywhere He has not already been at work.

There are many ways that we nurture and grow our relationship with Jesus. Last week we learned about bringing our sin to Jesus, and we will learn some more next week. Today I would like to challenge you to answer one question and take one simple action. The question is:

“Where have you seen God working in your life recently?”

The answer to that question will give you specific, personal examples of what Jesus can take for you and what He wants you to take on as your part. It is like getting to the end of a chapter in your book and seeing how far you’ve come. If you take the time to do this every week, you will experience spiritual growth that you can mark and measure. If you reflect daily, you will notice God more in real-time and not just after the fact.

Once you recognize how God is working in your life, you need to thank Him. This gratitude is about more than just being polite. We value what we celebrate. Our celebrations mark our minds and hearts in ways that stick with us. Every time we thank God and celebrate His work, we add another page to our book and invite God to write more. When we stop thanking God and celebrating His work in our lives, we stop seeing God work in our lives and eventually stop seeing God altogether. If you want to see God's great plans, you need to celebrate the small blessings God sends you.

Time spent reflecting on God’s work in our lives and thanking and celebrating that work breaks up our busyness with holy pauses. When we do this, we imitate God, Who created the world in six days, pausing at the end of each day to reflect on the Goodness of creation and taking a bigger pause on the seventh day, the Sabbath day, to recognize how Very Good the completed work was. When we do that, we can experience a rest that fills us with joy in what God has accomplished with us and the sure hope that He will be with us to guide and help us tomorrow.

As we let Jesus lead and grow us, He will give us true rest.