The Search is Over
Notes
Transcript
At that time Jesus prayed this prayer: “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way!
“My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
Background
People do not understand/accept what Jesus is doing and teaching!
Matthew 11 begins with a “conversation” between Jesus and a disciple of John the Baptist. John is in prison, awaiting his beheading, and he sends a message to Jesus asking if Jesus is the expected Messiah.
“Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?”
Jesus responds with the message that he is doing what the messiah was expected to do. Jesus tells the messenger
Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen—the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” And he added, “God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.”
Jesus is doing what the Messiah was supposed to do. The prophets predicted that the Messiah would overturn all the chaos and destruction that sin causes. That would include giving sight, hearing, raising the dead and etc...
But, John has an issue because he is not PERSONALLY affected by this.
It could also be that John wants to make certain that his imprisonment and upcoming death are not in vain. That the Messiah he proclaimed who was Jesus, and his imprisonment for pointing towards God’s new thing in Jesus were indeed fact and therefore not in vain.
But, it is not ONLY John who does not accept Jesus and his message and his miracles. All the towns that Jesus has been to seem to have ignored Jesus’ teaching.
Jesus declares that these towns have sorrow awaiting them because they refused to believe. He has performed miracles and great signs, and yet the people do not understand his message.
Jesus even declares that wicked Sodom would have repented and believe if Jesus had performed these miracles there.
Now we get to where we jumped into the story.
Because of all the unbelief, Jesus realizes that people have missed the simple search for Him and the Father.
Too many people seem to be on an elaborate search and quest for a relationship with God that they have missed the simple answer to this quest - Jesus.
Jesus declares that those who think they are wise have been proven to be foolish, but those who are childlike, simple, inquisitive, accepting… Those are the one’s who understand the message and search for God that is fulfilled in Jesus.
Jesus, later stated
Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.
The search for meaning, significance, truth, and God’s Kingdom has a simple answer - Jesus Christ.
But, the learned and wise people refused to accept that.
They believed that God promised that those who would seek God would find God.
If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.
There, in a foreign land, you will worship idols made from wood and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will search again for the Lord your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.
“I love all who love me. Those who search will surely find me.
Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near.
Even Jesus, earlier in his teachings had said
“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
But, there was a tradition that seeking God was not simple. There was a thought, belief, that it required work - hard, strenuous, exhausting, laborious work.
N.T. Wright states, “Jewish writings had, for a millennium and more, spoken warmly about the wisdom of the wise. God gave wisdom to those who feared him; a long Torah-study and piety indicated that those who devoted themselves to learning the law and trying to tease out its finer points would become wise, would ultimately know God. For the average Jew of Jesus’ day, this put ‘wisdom’ about as far out of reach as being a brain surgeon or test pilot seems for most people today. You needed to be a scholar, trained in languages and literature, with leisure to ponder and discuss weighty and complicated matters.
Jesus realizes that the wise believed their learning and deep searching and pondering gave them access to the Father. But really, it was those who accepted the simple message of Jesus - who gave up the deep, struggling, laborious search that actually found what they were looking for!
Jesus makes it really simple - HE IS THE ANSWER FOR THE SEARCH!
“My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
He says that if you want to know the Father, if you want to search for the Father and the ways of the Father. If you want to know exactly what the Father intends for His children, the answer is found only in Jesus, the Son who reveals , makes known, the ways and plans and desires of God.
No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
There is no laborious search. There is simply knowing Jesus!
The beauty is that Jesus offers to ALL this freedom and release from the toilsome search.
At first, it would seem as though Jesus only offers this to a few. That there is a special club that you have to be a part of to receive this special revelation of the Father through Jesus . After all, Jesus said in v. 27 that those whom he chooses to reveal the father to will know the ways of the Father.
So, the question becomes, “How do I become a part of the group that receives this revelation without a struggle and laborious search?”
Jesus continues that ALL who are tired of the struggle, the labor, the burden, the rules, the regulations - ALL can come to him.
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
The message of knowing God through Jesus, the simple message, is for EVERYONE who desires to receive it. For all who are tired, burdened, exhausted by the others ways we have searched to find God. It is for us.
There is no deep search, just a childlike acceptance of Jesus!
This is God’s desire and plan - that ALL would accept that message
The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.
“Do you think that I like to see wicked people die? says the Sovereign Lord. Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live.
As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?
Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?
This is what Paul sates about the kindness, mercy, and grace of God available to all through Jesus
For Moses writes that the law’s way of making a person right with God requires obedience to all of its commands. But faith’s way of getting right with God says, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven?’ (to bring Christ down to earth). And don’t say, ‘Who will go down to the place of the dead?’ (to bring Christ back to life again).” In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.
Paul reminds people of the deep struggle. They felt they had to go on a epic quest or journey to find God. But, by faith, a simple, childlike faith, we realize that way to find God is very near. This way of knowing God is by accepting the message and the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ.
Jesus reminds us that His way is not a way of burden or toil, but a gentle way.
He gives the example of yoked oxen. It is true that a rabbi’s teaching was referred to a yoke. The image was that the student was tied closely to the rabbi and his teaching. Where the rabbi went, the student/disciple had to go. What the rabbi did or said, the student would be a 1st hadn witness to so that the student could model it.
Jesus uses that understanding and image, but he changes it a bit… His yoke, his teaching, his way is kind/gentle/non-abrasive for those who seek to lay down their struggle and accept it.
Everyone in Jesus’ day understood that the best yokes for oxen were ones that fit right.
Oxen were brought to the skilled craftsman and they would set for a yoke fitting. The craftsman would carve on the yoke until he thought it was pretty good. Then, the oxen would be brought back and the yoke would be fitted on them/it again. If it didn’t fit right, the craftsman would carve and adjust whatever needed adjusted. This would happen repeatedly until the yoke fit just right. It was a tailored fit!
It's like trying on clothes, or getting a suit/dress tailored.
When a yoke would be a perfect tailored fit the word to describe it is the word translated gentle/kind/easy.
Jesus is saying that the search does not have to be a burden. All who are tired of this burden and this search are invited to come and find rest and a gentle yoke. But, there is something else about this image that needs to be addressed.
The skilled craftsman would adjust the yoke to the oxen. But, in this example the yoke is not adjusted. It is an easy yoke, for sure. But, it is not as though the teaching and ways of Jesus are adjusted for our desires and our whims. That’s not how Jesus’ teaching works.
His yoke is steadfast and unchangeable. But, it is kind because it is the yoke we were created, made, to wear in the beginning.
Jesus yoke fits us perfectly because that is how we were created.
And, if there is anyway, or anyhow that they yoke does not fit, it is because there is something unnatural about US. The yoke may not fit because of something unnatural, not part of creation - sin - that has grown on us and changed US.
Therefore Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, gently works on us - not the yoke- so that we can gently and easily fit the yoke.
IT is easy, it is kind, it is gentle because it is the yoke we were created to wear in the beginning.
This is why salvation, knowing Jesus, is a joy!
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.
And, everyone who is tired of the burdensome, toilsome, laborious struggle to know God is invited to lay down that burden and come to Jesus who has a way, a teaching, a revelation of God that fits us just right! It is gentle, it is easy, and it is not a burden.
Maybe there are some who would like this joy. This freedom. This light way.
Maybe there are those who have accepted this way, but then turned to struggle and labor and have forgotten the gentle, light, joy of salvation.
Let us lay down our burdens and come again to Jesus Christ and receive the rest from the struggle and the joy of salvation!