Gentle & Lowly: The Heart of Christ

Introduction

How is your heart this morning? Some of us come into worship after an exhausting week, looking to be renewed. Others will arrive thinking more about the plans for this afternoon or this evening, closely watching the clock to see when this preacher will find be done. Some come to worship carrying the weight of sin, carrying on our minds and hearts those words that we said to our spouse or friend this past week that we wish we could take back. Others come discouraged, wondering if you’ll ever manage to get ahead. Many of us come with hearts heavy having lost a loved one. Some come into worship attempting to check every box. Just as some early Christians tried to check every box of not sinning, going to church, reading the Bible, all so we try to meet the expectations of God, or maybe, simply people around us. The checkbox approach simply leads to disappointment, discouragement, and exhaustion. So I ask again, how is your heart this morning? God has given us four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Within these four books are 89 chapters of scripture. Throughout these 89 chapters, we learn from Jesus about Jesus. But in all 89 of those chapters, there is only one place where Jesus teaches us about his own heart. When we learn about the heart of Christ, we learn about what he can do for our hearts our own heart. Our weary, tired, stressed, overwhelmed, or grieving heart. When we learn about the heart of Christ, we experience grace and nourishment for our thirsty souls.

Dane Ortland writes, “We need a Bible...(because) our natural intuition can only give us a God like us.” The Bible is God’s revelation of himself to us. One of the reasons that we need the Bible is that fallen humanity cannot conceive of our God. When you think of others religions out there, they are generally the best that human wisdom and reason could come up with, yet they fall short. So God has given us his Word, and in it we learn about who God is, what he has done, and how he can touch and transform out weary souls. Today we’re starting a new series we’re calling, Gentle & Lowly, named after a book by the same name. Gentle and Lowly was written by Dane Ortland. The introduction says “this book is written for the discouraged, the frustrated, the weary, the disenchanted, the cynical, the empty. Those running on fumes. Those whose Christian lives feel like constantly running up a descending escalator. Those of us who find ourselves thinking: “How could I mess up that bad—again?” It is for that increasing suspicion that God’s patience with us is wearing thin.”

One person has put it this way, “only as we drink down the kindness of the heart of Christ will we leave in our wake, everywhere we go, the aroma of heaven, and die one day having startled the world with glimpses of a divine kindness too great to be boxed in by what we deserve.” But what does this mean, and how does it affect those who follow him? The heart of Christ is given to us in Matthew 11, and the heart of Christ will transform our hearts (if we open ourselves to it).

Gentle

Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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.” Every time I read this passage, I feel like I have to breath out. The weights of stress and expectations and busyness are answered with, “you will find rest for your souls.” About this passage, N.T. Wright says, “when he declares here, in the old translation, that he is ‘meek and lowly of heart’, he isn’t boasting that he’s attained some special level of spiritual achievement. He is encouraging us to believe that he isn’t going to stand over us like a policeman, isn’t going to be cross with us like an angry schoolteacher. And the welcome he offers, for all who abandon themselves to his mercy, is the welcome God offers through him. This is the invitation which pulls back the curtain and lets us see who ‘the father’ really is – and encourages us to come into his loving, welcoming presence.” As believers when we wrestle with sin, it can feel like it is us vs. Jesus. But that’s not the way it works. Jesus has claimed us as his own. When we battle sin, Jesus is for us. Jesus is on our side, and he is there to deliver us victory over sin. Ortland says it this way, “his yoke is kind and his burden is light. That is, his yoke is a non-yoke, and his burden is a non-burden. What helium does to a balloon, Jesus’s yoke does to his followers.” Jesus says in Matthew 5:5, “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Some people like going to events called Tractor Pulls. This is when they cover the floor of an arena with dirt and guys in souped-up tractors compete to see who can pull the heaviest loads. That’s nothing new because long before the internal combustion engine, farmers were competing with animals to see which one was strongest. They still have competitions in which workhorses compete. The Clydesdale breed has always been one of the strongest horses. Long before the Budweiser, Clydesdale were pulling heavy loads. In these competitions, competitors made an interesting discovery. A single horse could pull a heavy load, but when yoked with another horse, together, they could pull more than the sum of the amount that each horse could pull alone. For instance, let’s say a single Clydesdale can pull a sled holding two tons of weight. And another Clydesdale can pull three tons. You would think that when yoked together, the most they could pull would be five tons. But in reality when these two horses are yoked together, they can actually pull seven tons! You may think that’s not possible, but this phenomenon has been proven many times. It’s called synergy. Two pulling together can accomplish more than the sum of the two parts. Now apply that principle to the yoke of Christ. You can try bearing the heavy load yourself, but Jesus invites you to join Him inside His yoke. We battle sin with the love, the aid, and the grace of jesus Christ. It can feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders, but the heart of Christ is to come and release the weight that we are feeling. The sin, the pressure, the expectations, the stress level.

The Greek word that is used for “gentle” is “prause.” It can be translated as gentle, or it can be translated as meek or humble. As believers, we are invited to grow in Christlikeness. Therefore, how are you growing in gentleness? Or humility? Also, how have you experienced the gentleness of Christ? In Christ, we don’t need to be heavy laden, for his yoke is a non-yoke, and his burden is a non-burden.

Lowly

The other word that Christ uses to describe his heart is, lowly. Christ had every right to not be lowly. Christ was in heaven with God the Father before he came to earth. When Satan tempted Christ, he could have called upon a legion of angels to defend him. Instead, Paul teaches us in Philippians 2:6-8 that “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Rather than being prideful of his place with the Father, he obediently humbled himself and became lowly. As we grow in Christlikeness, we can remember the words of James 4:6, which says, “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Rather than valuing the pride that we would be tempted by if we were in the shoes of Jesus, God gives his grace to those who humble themselves as Christ did when he came to earth. Hebrews 4:15 says that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” When Christ came to earth, he experienced many of the same trials and temptations that we did, yet he did not sin. Ortland summarizes this by writing, “the point in saying that Jesus is lowly is that he is accessible.” Christ is accessible not only in that we can pray to him anytime or read his Word, but also because he has been in our shoes. He has walked on Earth, and he sympathizes us in our weaknesses.

A teacher was helping a kindergarten student put on his cowboy boots. Even with her pulling and him pushing, the little boots didn’t want to go on. By the time they got the second boot on, she had worked up a sweat. She almost cried when the little boy said, “Teacher, they’re on the wrong feet.” She looked, and sure enough, they were. It wasn’t any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on, this time on the right feet. He then announced, “These aren’t my boots.” She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face to scream, “Why didn’t you say so?” Once again, she struggled to help him pull off the boots. No sooner had they gotten the boots off when he said, “They’re my brother’s boots. My mom made me wear ’em.” Now she didn’t know if she should laugh or cry, but she mustered up what grace and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again. Helping him into his coat, she asked, “Now, where are your mittens?” He said, “I stuffed ’em in the toes of my boots.” Have you ever been there? You’re trying to help someone else, but one thing compounds on top of another, and before you know it, you’re both mad. Well that’s not how Christ deals with his us. Jesus says in verse 30, “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” When we hit that moment of “I can’t deal with this kid any longer,” our natural tendency is to get frustrated and to react accordingly. But Christ is right there, and he has experienced frustration as well. In reaching out to him, we can experienced his loving grace in that moment. Dane Ortland, “Our natural intuition can only give us a God like us. The God revealed in the Scripture deconstructs our intuitive predilections and startles us with one whose infinitude of perfections is matched by his infinitude of gentleness. Indeed, his perfections include his perfect gentleness.” Rather than the senile old man or the county sheriff waiting to catch us in a sin or the God of the deists who believe that Jesus wound the world up like a clock and let the chips fall where they may, Christ is lowly. He is accessible. He’s been through what we’ve been through, and he offers us freedom.

Conclusion

The heart of Christ is found in Matthew 11. His heart is Gentle and Lowly, and those who follow Christ experience his heart of love.

In reflecting on this passage, one author thought back to when he was younger. He writes that, “when I was a freshman in college, I was full of myself. I don’t think anyone at the time would have said so, and I didn’t think so, but now in retrospect I know it was so. Every choice I made revolved around pleasing me. Pride was my mother, if you will, and I did whatever she said to do. I had reasons to be proud. I was an honors student, straight A’s, Mr. Smarty-Pants. I had a nice-looking girlfriend. She was tall, blonde, and athletic. And I was athletic myself. I was one of two freshmen playing on the varsity basketball team, on a team that was so good it would finish second in the nation. The other freshman on varsity was so skilled he would transfer a year later to start for the University of Iowa. I had all that going for me. I had the grades, the girl, and the prowess. And I believed Jesus was who the church said he was. That’s just how I was raised— religiously. He is the Son of God, sure; rose from the dead, fine; died for my sins, very good. I believed in my brain, but not in my heart. And because I didn’t believe down there, I played by my own rules. No need to put some yoke on this boy’s back. I wanted freedom, the freedom that comes with me deciding what is right and wrong. But do you know what my yokeless and Christless living never brought? It never brought rest. However, when Christ chose to befriend me by his gracious will, by first destroying all my idols and then pressing down my peacock feathers (I lost everything that made me proud)—when he made me humble enough to see straight—I was then willing to put Jesus’ yoke on my back. There was a new yoke and a new burden I had to carry, but do you know what? For the first time in my life I felt restful.”

How’s your heart this morning? Do you feel at peace? Do you feel restful with an easy yoke and a light burden? For most of us, we’d probably say, no. But Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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.” The essence of the heart of Christ is, gentle and lowly.