What are You Yoked To?

What are you yoked to? Matthew 11:25-30

Insert Labor day anecdote..Intro text really early and read.

Tomorrow we celebrate Labor day. It’s a day that our government has set aside since the 1890’s to celebrate our country's labor force, and to celebrate the rights of workers. Specifically things like an 8 hour work day, and giving workers time to rest. Tomorrow we’ll enjoy a day off, go on picnics, and really look to take time to rest. Life in general can be very exhausting, and draining. And that’s what our passage addresses today, rest. We’ll be in Matthew 11:25-30.

I discovered in college that I love naps. When I got to college mom and dad weren’t there anymore to impose a bed time on me, and even though Liberty University had a curfew, that curfew wasn’t one that required us to go to bed, it just simply told us what time we had to be back in the dorm. So, as a college freshman I would routinely stay up until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, sometimes even later, knowing that most mornings I had to get up for a class at 7:45 in the morning. Needless to say I wasn’t getting a lot of rest at night. So I compensated by using the down time in between classes for naps, but the problem was I still wasn’t rested enough.

In my early 20’s I discovered what my parents were trying to teach me when I was child. Naps are great! When I was a child I used to fight my parents over taking naps. Much the same way my daughter fights Larkin and me on taking naps now. I never wanted to take a nap. But, because of my awful sleep habits at night in college, I discovered that I indeed enjoyed naps. In fact I had a saying, Jesus took naps, be like Jesus. Check out Mark 4:38, if you want to know where He napped. In fact I plan to nap later this afternoon. The problem I have found with naps though, is that they never seem to satisfy me, sometimes I wake up more exhausted than I was prior to the nap. But, I still take them.

I think we’re all trying to find time to rest more. We live in a culture that is always going. We have cities who brag about never sleeping. I’m looking at you NYC, the city that never sleeps. We are all feeling exhausted in some way shape or form, and we want more rest. There are many things in this world that burden us and exhaust us; in the passage we’re going to study today Jesus offers us rest from our burden.

As we go through our study this morning I want us to look at Jesus' invitation to find rest in Him, what that rest is from, and how we can receive and experience that true rest. I think as we go through this together we’ll see that Jesus is offering more than just a 20 minute power nap to us. Rather He is inviting us into a relationship with Him that grants us a peace and a rest unrivaled by anyone or anything else. Today, I want us to see that True rest is achieved when you come to Jesus, and become His disciple.

Body

As Matthew begins this part of chapter 11, Jesus has just finished essentially calling out the Jews for their lack of belief. At the beginning of the chapter John the Baptist, who was in prison, sends disciples to inquire if Jesus is the messiah. Then, even though John had some doubts, Jesus gives him high praise and begins to then call out cities in which He had worked and ministered to for their unbelief. As we get into verse 25 then Jesus begins an invitation to come to Him.

Even though Jesus has just finished preaching hard truths, He doesn’t leave His listener in despair. He wants them to see the heart of His message, the heart of the Gospel, and He wants them to come to Him; and so He gives them an opportunity.

Point 1- Jesus’ rest is for everyone

This section begins by saying “At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.” When Matthew writes, “Jesus answered and said,” this is a Hebrew idiom meaning that Jesus was speaking openly, what Jesus prays and says out loud here in these verses was not spoken in private. It’s not meant for just a few people’s ears, it’s for everyone’s ears to hear. This indicates that what Jesus is saying is meant for everyone, and because He is talking about rest, it shows us that Jesus’ rest is for everyone. This invitation is open to all who would come.

What I find interesting though, is that Jesus continues His prayer, it indicates that although the invitation is open to everyone, not everyone will accept it. Jesus says that God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.

Two things to point out here. First, I don’t think Jesus is talking about intelligence here when He says these things have been hidden from the wise. He’s talking about those who have a proud spiritual attitude. Those who don’t think they need God, or those who think they have it all together. The wise can be religious and nonreligious people. These are people who are too proud to submit to God’s wisdom and truth, and because of it the glory of God is truly hidden from them, and they exclude themselves from God’s kingdom by rejecting Him.

Second, when Jesus says these things have been revealed to babes, He is of course not necessarily referring to literal children. Although many of us came to Jesus as children, what Jesus is referring to here is a humble spiritual attitude. Think about a baby for a moment. Babies are needy. They have to rely on someone for everything, from eating to having their diapers changed. They need someone to do it all for them to care for them. They are completely reliant on their parents. The point here is that those who are spiritually humble understand that they need to be completely reliant on God. It is to those who understand they are completely reliant on God, that God reveals the truth to. It is these who will find the rest Jesus talks about.

Point 2: Jesus' prayer reveals He is God, and is able to give this rest.

As we read the Gospels we frequently find Jesus’ opponents asking Him who gave Him the authority to teach, say, and do the things He does. No one in our passage today asks Jesus this question, yet, He still answers it with the next part of His prayer. We haven’t even gotten to the part where Jesus offers the rest, yet we already know who its open to, and how He has the authority to give it. Check this out.

Verse 27 Jesus prays this ““All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

Jesus in this verse unequivocally equates Himself with God, calling Him My Father, and it’s done in a way that Jews would never do except when referring to His corporate fatherhood of Israel as a whole. For Jesus to say in this sense that God is His, Him as a person, father, would have been considered blasphemy. This statement is one of Jesus’ clearest statements of His deity, it discloses the intimate and absolutely unique relationship of the Father and the Son. In essence this statement points out that they are one and are inseparable.

In making this statement Jesus has then revealed the authority by which He has to make the invitation He is about to make. Jesus' prayer reveals He is God, and He alone is able to give this rest. So, this invitation is open to all and it is given by Jesus who is God.

Point 3: Jesus’ Rest

Now we’re getting to the good part, the part everyone who studies this passage loves. I think as a parent of two young children I read this passage and I go, LORD I need rest. I love my kids but they don’t know how to sleep in past 7AM, even on the weekends, and they don’t want to go to bed when it’s time for bed. Charis does this thing where whenever she starts to get tired, she actually gets this burst of energy and tears through the whole house, yet when we finally get her to lay down in bed she’ll fall right asleep. As a parent I feel the need for physical rest, but the rest Jesus is offering here is even better than physical rest.

So, this is the part where Jesus is actually offering the rest. The prayer is setting the invitation up, and now this is the invitation. In verse 28 Jesus tells us the first thing we need to do to receive the rest He gives. The first thing we need to do is to come. Jesus says “Come to me.”

Now, who should come? Well Jesus says, “All who labor and are heavy laden.” Really I could point back to something I said earlier in Jesus prayer and point out that this part is for everyone. Honestly, we all labor and are heavy laden. I don’t think any of us here would say we don’t feel that.

I recently listened to a Timothy Keller sermon on this passage and he says that “in this invitation Jesus tells us what we already have and then offers us some things.” Well what do we have then? We have a restlessness. Jesus has something in mind here when he talks about a burden and he is talking about restlessness. He is talking about spiritual weariness, he talks about a spiritual sleeplessness or restlessness. In Matthew 23:4 Jesus tells us what is causing the restlessness and burden spiritually. He, speaking of the Pharisees and scribes says, “For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”

The burden here comes from sin and from the law, but not from the law itself but in our attempts to keep the law as a means to salvation. Deep down everyone knows that God’s standard is perfection. This is why when you ask people who aren’t following Jesus how to get to heaven they’ll say well you have to be a good person. But what is a good person? It’s a perfect person. So, we try to be good, we try to be perfect, but none of us can do it. Paul tells us that in Romans “all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” The Law was never meant to save us from our sins. It was meant to act like an X-ray showing us where we are broken and our need for God. Yet, it is in our nature to become burdened with the idea that we are saved through our works, this is why you see people who say well I’ll come to Jesus after I clean myself up.

But this is not what Jesus tells us to do. He tells us to come to Him, all of us who are weary from our sin and burdened from trying to be perfect. He wants us to come as we are, and not as we should be.

The idea here of labor, or to be weary, is the idea of working to the point of utter exhaustion, and heavy laden is indicating that at some point in the past a great load was dumped on the weary person. So, weary or labor is referring to something internal in us, and heavy laden suggests an external burden.

So then, the rest that Jesus offers us is a rest from the weariness of sin. When we rest in Jesus we realize that we now have the option not to sin. Before we come to Christ we have no other choice but to sin, but when we come to Jesus He shows us another way. We also get rest from the burden of the law, because once we rest in Jesus we are no longer condemned by the law, but rather made whole by Jesus’ perfect keeping and fulfillment of the law. It is rest in Christ, and it is beautiful!

Point 4: To really rest, we need to remove our burden and take on Christ’s burden.

I bet if I took a poll that many of us would say we wouldn’t mind having dessert before dinner. I know I never mind dessert to start out a meal. The problem is when you start with dessert or even if you just have dessert you aren’t getting the true sustenance you need. Now we eat to get energy, sugar, which is in pretty much every dessert will give you energy fast. But, eventually what happens? You get a sugar crash. We need more sustained energy.

You can say the same when it comes to studying this passage. A lot of people like the part where Jesus says, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest,” but, they will leave out this next part. Leaving out this last part of the passage is like eating your cake before dinner and getting a sugar crash. If you just simply come to Jesus and don’t listen to what Jesus says next, you’ll feel rested from your burdens for a while, but you will miss out on the complete rest that Jesus wants you to have because you’ll begin to feel that burden again.

As Jesus concludes His invitation He gives us some instructions. He says in verses 29 and 30, “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.”

Did you catch that? He says take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Now, I think a lot of us here know what a yoke is, but just in case, a yoke is a farmers tool used to join two beasts of burden together primarily for the purpose of plowing a field or pulling a cart of some sort.

In order for us to take Jesus’ yoke upon ourselves, we first have to take the yoke we already have on off. The thing about yokes is you’re never alone. When you wear a yoke there is always something else connected to you. So, we are all yoked to something. Whatever you have yoked yourself too, you can't get away from it. You’re a slave to it.

We all have yoked ourselves to something. We cannot wear two yokes at the same time. And the reality is that whatever we are yoked to, besides Jesus, will in the end destroy us. I mentioned just a moment ago that we’re burdened by the law and by sin. That burden can take a lot of different forms and we are all yoked to one of them if we’re not yoked to Jesus. I could stand here and name a ton of things that we yoke ourselves to, like an adulterous relationship, drugs and alcohol, money, pornography, pride, worry, and many more. These are all just different forms of the same thing, sin. When we are yoked to sin we will never experience the rest Jesus wants us to receive.

So, Jesus tells us to take that yoke off. How do we do that? We repent. Repentance is simply agreeing with God and confessing to Him that you have sinned, and then turning from that sin and seeking to follow Him. It’s giving over the rule of your life to Him.

But there is one more part here that Jesus calls us to do. He calls us to come to Him, take off our old yoke of sin, and to take His yoke on ourselves. This is a call to discipleship. Jesus knew the audience He was speaking to, and they would have understood what He meant. Yoke, of course, is an agricultural tool. When you are training a new horse or ox to plow a field or pull a cart you don’t yoke it to another animal that hasn’t experienced this before. You yoke it to an older and stronger one so that the younger one can learn much faster. That older animal knows the road or the field, it knows where to walk and how hard to pull. The older animal teaches the younger.

This is what Jesus is asking us to do. He is saying “I know you’re burdened by your yoke of sin, I know you want the rest I offer, but the only way to experience it is for you to take off your yoke and be yoked to me. I’ll guide you, I’ll teach you, I’ll even carry you.” Jesus knows we cannot live this life alone, and He knows we can’t experience His rest without Him. So, He calls us to be His disciple. He calls us to follow Him, to attach our whole life to Him. In doing so we will find rest. To really rest, we need to remove our burden and take on Christ’s burden.

Main Point/Conclusion/Invitation

So, the crux of this message, the invitation that Jesus gives us, and the one I am about to give you is this: True rest, salvation, is achieved when you come to Jesus, and become His disciple. We first come to Him, then we take off our yoke of sin through repentance, and put on His yoke by becoming His disciple.

If you are here today and you are weary and heavy laden. You’re carrying a burden and you know you haven’t come to Him yet I want to invite you to do so. In a moment I will pray and loan you some words. But then after that I want to invite you to come forward and talk with me, or one of the Deacons. You need to become HIs disciple and begin that relationship with Him.

If you are here today and you know you’ve come to Jesus already, but maybe you’re still feeling burdened. Let me ask you, have you really taken off your old yoke and truly yoked yourself to Jesus? Are you actively seeking to be discipled. Are you daily reading the word, are you praying, are you not only coming to church and sitting under the teaching of the church but getting connected to a life group? This is how we are discipled. We are discipled by reading the word, praying, and sitting under more mature believers who can continually guide us to Jesus and help us to grow. Being a christian doesn’t stop the moment you are saved, that’s the beginning. You must constantly be seeking Christ, His wisdom, His love, and His rest by being discipled. So as we open the altar for those who would come to Jesus for the first time, the altar is also open to you to pray and seek discipleship. Maybe you need to talk to Pastor Ken or myself, or a deacon, or your life group leader here about meeting regularly for some form of discipleship. Maybe you need a solid Bible reading plan to get on track, or maybe you need to join the church. Ask God to reveal your next step in discipleship, and take it. Let’s pray.