Ministry Parables - 1 - Work With What You’ve Got

Scripture: Matthew 11:16-19, 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.”

7/5/2026

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

Opening Prayer:

Loving God, we confess that we carry burdens that we are not meant to bear. We struggle to trust in Your promises and fail to rest in Your loving care. Forgive us and teach us to lay our burdens at Your feet. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Call to Worship

Leader: The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

People: The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.

Leader: Come to me, all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

People: We come to worship the one who gives rest to our souls.

Leader: Come, let us lift our voices to the Lord.

All: Alleluia! Christ is our peace and rest!

Work With What You've Got

Movement 1: Celebrations

How much celebrating did you get to do this week?

This weekend marks several important birthdays. We've been celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence across our nation. I hope you were able to enjoy some of those celebrations. We've also finished our third year as Bethel Church of Washington, part of the Global Methodist Church.

There's lots to celebrate, and there's good reason to do that as well, because we remember the things we celebrate, just like we remember the things that we mourn. In many ways, I think it's less a witness to the rest of the world about what we think is important and more a witness to ourselves, helping us realize what's really valuable in our lives.

It is a busy season, but it often feels like we just go from one busy season to another, measuring our life and success by how busy we keep ourselves. Perhaps we even believe it keeps us out of trouble. Sometimes I wonder, with as much energy as we put into winding ourselves up for big activities and big celebrations, do we ever wind down to a place where we can rest and reflect?

Our passage today reminds us that the same one we've been following and serving with as laborers in His field is the same one who puts His hand on our shoulder and calls us to stop and find rest in Him.

Movement 2: Children

Jesus. (pause) Jesus was the perfect, sinless son of God, and even he faced challenges, rejection, and criticism in the ways that he tried to show God's love to others. Not all of that criticism came from people who would have considered themselves his enemies. Some of the doubt and skepticism he faced came from those closest to him, such as his cousin, John the Baptist, who sat in prison and questioned whether Jesus was the one they were all waiting for.

Jesus had patterns as he trained his disciples and went out with them between Galilee and Jerusalem. He would send them out to serve with his blessing, authority, and power, and then he'd call them back to stop and reflect, to grow and be refreshed. He sent them into that busy work. He called them back and gave them breaks. They started off strong, but they were disturbed. They believed John the Baptist was up there at or close to the level of Jesus, far above themselves. If John had questions and had landed in prison with little hope of getting out, what would their fate be?

So Jesus spoke to their anxious hearts and minds and grabbed the real root of that problem. John was not the problem; it was his situation that bothered them. It was a situation that was unfair and undeserved. The challenge came from the people John was trying to reach with God's word and God's love—the same people Jesus and the disciples were trying to reach.

When Jesus chose and sent his disciples, they were people without significant social status. Last week, Jesus compared his disciples to children, and here again, Jesus points to children out in the marketplace, saying,

"We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not mourn."

For young children, playing is often their work, and their play usually imitates life, often in its more exciting times. We see this out along the streets and sometimes in cars driving down the highway, when kids see those big trucks and pump their hands up and down in view of the drivers, trying to get them to honk their horns. There's a kind of joy that kids get in hearing that sound, which sometimes even makes us grown-ups smile a little bit. Kids play games imitating school or hospitals. They pretend to be farmers, soldiers, preachers, police officers, and all kinds of entertainers. And whatever game, whatever role they play, you can bet it's going to be an exciting day. Kids don't have a lot of paperwork in their play.

But sometimes kids can be fickle and don't want to play together.

The same was true in Jesus' day. He refers to those kids who pretend to put on wedding celebrations, playing vibrant dance music, and trying to get other children to dance with them. If they couldn't get that celebration response from them, they might change their tune and pretend to be having a funeral, weeping, wailing, and singing a dirge, once again trying to get others to join in with them. But either way, they're ignored. Remember, we celebrate and mourn the things that are important to us in life. When we stop doing either of those things, life loses its value.

Children aren't the only ones who can be fickle. There may have been adults who were too busy with what they considered "real life" to stop for a moment and celebrate the life that those children invited them into. Jesus tells the disciples this because they've seen those children in the marketplace. Those disciples had once been some of those grown-ups who ignored those children or told them to get out of the way and quit bothering them. But then they met Jesus, heard the tune he was playing, and began to experience life in a new way.

We've been hearing about that for weeks. When you don't get the response that you hope for, that doesn't always mean we are not successful, faithful, or growing.

And it doesn't mean that Jesus is failing us either.

(pause)

Movement 3: The Yoke

Sometimes it is the kids who get it right. And even when they don't get it right, they often show us what the real problems are in their honesty. As he drew near to the end of this teaching, Jesus thanked God the Father that this heavenly wisdom was hidden from those who were considered wise and educated, but it was revealed to little children. It was revealed not because of innocence, but because of their responsiveness, because they don't figure these things out on their own.

Jesus says all things are given to him by the Father, and only the Father truly knows the Son. No one knows the Father except for the Son and those to whom Jesus chooses to reveal Him. That means it's all in his hands. We can't push someone to Jesus; we can only point. He's the one who issues the invitation, and they're the ones who have to respond.

And this is where Jesus issues his invitation:

"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."

That's what this world has been waiting for, whether they know it or not. Since the fall of humanity in Genesis chapter three, all people have been aching for true rest. We've been fighting to control something we are not in control of, nor will we ever be. But we fear that if we let go of it, it will overwhelm us and run us over, along with everything and everyone we hold dear. But here is Jesus, the only one who can hold it, calling you to let go and come to him and find that rest that reaches down and restores our souls.

This isn't a quick prayer at the altar or a spiritual power nap to help us jump back into that same work with a little more energy and focus. Jesus isn't telling us to take a break. He's telling us to let it go, come to him with our empty hands, and hook ourselves onto his yoke.

That yoke is a powerful image because it reminds us that we are pulling the whole load, but we are NOT pulling it by ourselves. Often, when we are looking at problems that are bigger than us, our instinct is to cut them up into smaller pieces, find a piece that's more our size, that we think we have the strength to work with, and let other people deal with the rest. But Jesus isn't asking us to pick out our little corner of the world to save. He's asking us to come empty-handed to Him, link ourselves to Him, and go with Him as HE saves the world.

Jesus bears the full weight, which is why the burden feels light when we are yoked with him.

Movement 4 - Invited Back In

Yoking a weak ox to a strong ox doesn't always make the work easier for the strong one. Sometimes the strong one ends up pulling the weak one as well as the load, and probably thinking it would be a lot easier if that weak one was just riding in the cart.

And Jesus could look at us like that, knowing He's the one who's saving us, pulling all the weight. There's not much we can do to help Him, but He invites us to be unequally yoked with Him anyway. He invites us to serve with Him as He carries the weight.

Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light, but it makes me wonder, because life often does not feel easy or light. In fact, there are many times it feels downright hard and heavy. When we feel that weight, that burden, that's not a denial of this teaching of Jesus. It's a signal that something's not quite right. Sometimes it's a small signal, a faint hint, like your check engine light coming on in your car. It could mean nothing. It could mean there's a sensor going bad, and it won't affect your driving today. Or it could be the first sign in a series of signals of something really out of place.

Some of you have worked on tractors and farm equipment that were old enough that they didn't have check engine lights. So instead, you listened for strange sounds or an unsteadiness—the way it moved or switched gears. If you've worked on a farm for very long, you learn those signals pretty quickly. And when you do, you stop what you're doing, and you go back and check the connections. You make sure everything's in alignment, connected together, working the way that it's intended to, because you know if you try to push on, it's going to cost you a lot more than if you stop and do what you can to take care of the issue in the moment.

When we start feeling that weight, when things start feeling off, that's not a sign that we have done or are doing something wrong. But it's an invitation to check and make sure we're still yoked to Jesus, harnessed in and following His lead... because sometimes we drift and get loose. The heaviness usually means we've slipped out of the yoke and started pulling solo again.

We can start off pointed in the right direction with an end goal in sight, going strong, and feeling like serving with Jesus is just a walk in the park. But we can't see as far or as true as He can, so our ultimate aim is always to follow Him. If we're not doing that, we're going the wrong way.

But I want you to hear what Jesus says to his disciples. Because in this moment, he's not calling to the crowds who don't know him at all. He's talking to those he spent the most time with, raising up and sending out. He doesn't tell them to go back to the drawing board or the lessons that he taught them at the beginning. He doesn't tell them that they just need to give more, try harder, or figure out a better way to do things. He doesn't tell them they just need to work together more instead of trying to go solo.

No, he simply says, "Come to me, 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."

The world tells you to work with what you've got. What have you got? (pause) We've got Jesus, and there's nothing we could ever have better than Him. We're not pulling solo. So first, we connect to Jesus, then we pull together, because Jesus offers us more than we can offer each other.

He's not promising no more hurt or heartache, no more sickness or pain. That day will come eventually. But what Jesus is promising his disciples here is rest—in the midst of whatever you're facing, good and bad, the things that seem like they're working and the things that are not.

Jesus invites you to let go of it, to come to him, and to pick up his yoke, to put it on your shoulder. To let go of your ways and follow his ways. To let go of your timing and follow his timing. It means carrying what he gave you and trusting him to take care of what you left behind. It means going when he says go and stopping when he says stop.

That, brothers and sisters, is how we find rest for our souls.

(pause)

Today, you are invited to stop, put down whatever you are carrying, and come to his table. First we yoke ourselves to Jesus, then we pull together, as He leads us into new life and true rest for our souls.

Closing Prayer

(none) (Transition to Bekah leading communion liturgy)