Evangelistic Talk

Introduction

My topic for this morning is the question “who is Jesus?”. Now, this was a question that became personally relevant to me in a big way in 2020. I’ve always had a hard time with anxiety. In fact, my dad (who is a psychologist) told me that I am the only person he’s ever met who gets worried about not having anything to worry about.

This did change a bit when I came to real, saving faith in 2016. But when the pandemic came in 2020, like everybody, I started to feel some sense of loss. I was grieving the friends I was missing, and feeling the fear of not knowing where I would be, whether I would lose my opportunities, my friends, or even my own life. All of a sudden, my anxiety started to grow and grow beyond what I had every experienced. I became familiar with the weariness of existence.

And yet, I’m sure I’m not alone in this. The details of this experience belong to me alone, but in general, I think we all can relate to that feeling of weariness. And if we can’t, we will be able to soon. So today, I want to show you the Jesus who met me in my depths. To see this, let’s take a look at Matthew 11:28-30:

“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.”

What I want us to notice first is the people to whom Jesus addresses these statements. He’s speaking to people who feel that they are weary and burdened. In context, these are people who feel the weight of trying to live a good Jewish life, but really I think this applies to all of us. Being a human in this world is exhausting, and it weighs heavily on our lives. We all know that bone-weariness that we feel when we get home from a late class only to remember that we have assignments for all our classes due for tomorrow. We all feel the burden of the school schedule. But I would argue that this runs deeper than that. I would argue that our greatest burden is brokenness. I would argue that when each of us looks inside ourselves, we see the fact that we are broken. We know that we have a certain behaviour, a certain feeling, or a certain way of thinking that we hate, but which cannot stop coming through. For me, it was the anxiety of my thoughts, for others it might be anger, or for others it might be prejudice, or a hatred of ourselves, and our bodies. That brokenness lives deeply inside each of us.

And if that wasn’t enough, there is brokenness in the world too. COVID was brokenness in the world. The environmental danger we all find ourselves in is brokenness in the world. The relationships we’ve lost or have damaged are broken parts of this world. There is so much we see and know that is broken in the world, and to see that brokenness is to bear its burden.

And what is the result of this? It’s weariness. We feel our own brokenness and the brokenness of the world and we just feel tired. After all, who can bear that much? Who can deal with the knowledge of all the brokenness of the world? But it’s always there – we always feel it.

But that isn’t the whole story of this verse. Jesus does know about all of the brokenness of the world. He sees it and he feels it. But he also gives us a solution. Notice what he tells us to do. He tells us to come to him. And when we come to him, what should we expect to find? If you’ve been reading Matthew to this point, you will realise that Jesus thought of himself as no less than God’s promised king. Understanding our brokenness, we should expect this king to cast us out. How can the representative of God’s perfect righteousness do anything but reject us.

Is that the picture we get? No. Jesus tells us to come to him because he is gentle and lowly. Jesus is the exalted Lord, the Son of God. But he is also the man who rolled up his sleeves and washed the disciples’ feet. He is the person who cried when he saw the grief and devastation death had wrought on the world. Jesus, unique among all people, knew both the true rest of God and the true burden of humanity. And, in his invitation, he offers us the opportunity to give him our brokenness, and take on his rest.

That was what happened to me. In the depths of my anxious life, when I felt my brokenness most keenly, this gentle, lowly Jesus came to me and gave me the rest I needed. And my prayer is that he will do the same for you. And my prayer for you is that if you hear the call of Jesus through this message that you will be prepared to answer it and take him up on his promise. Don’t ignore it. Follow this up. You’ll be glad you did.