Questions for Further Thought

1. In what ways have you experienced the patience of God and how has that impacted your walk of faith (cf. vv.21-24)?
2. How should Jesus' prayer (vv.25-26) inform how you pray?
3. How does Jesus' authority relate to the revelation of Jesus (v.27)?
4. Do you have the same compassion on the unrepentant as Jesus displays in inviting them to himself (v.28)? If not, why not?
5. How does Jesus' statement about his yoke being easy and his burden light encourage you?

Matthew 11:25-30

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

I want to review the last couple weeks in the discipleship series.Two weekends ago we looked at Mary from Luke 1. We saw in Mary, the mother of Jesus, exemplary traits of a disciple of Jesus: 

•  Her submissive response to the angel, “May it be to me a you have said” 
•  Her faith in the promises 
•  Her worship of God as sovereign and good 
•  Her meditation on the works of God 
•  And her perseverance as a follower of Jesus

All of these are worthy of our imitation as disciples of Jesus. 

Last week, in John 13, we saw Jesus, take up a servant’s towel and wash his disciples feet. That event simple foreshadowed Christ taking on human flesh, and humbling himself to death on a cross for our cleansing and reconciliation to God. Our application as disciples was to know the love of Christ personally and to show the love of Christ to others. As Jesus commanded, “Love one another as I have loved you.” This is the labor of discipleship. As a result, one of you told me that you consciously, ‘put on the towel’ in your relationship with your spouse. May it be so all the more, every day.

This week, my aim in the message this weekend is that you (and I), to go in faith exclusively to Jesus Christ as his disciples and receive the rest our souls are longing for. 

The Invitation

Our text contains this much-loved invitation of Jesus, “come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus is not necessarily talking about more sleep or less physical labor. Rather the Jesus is talking about the rest of finding God in Him, and in finding God in Christ we find the longing of our soul’s satisfaction. That is the rest he promises. 

Let’s take a look at the flow of the teaching about Jesus Christ in the section which then comes to a crescendo with Christ’s invitation: “come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden”  Four headings: 

1. The Judgment of Jesus
2. The Prayer of Jesus
3. The Authority of Jesus
4. The Invitation of Jesus

The Judgment of Jesus 

Jesus had been ministering the gospel in the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum the northern end of the Sea of Galilee. Yet, overall, the people of those cities rejected him. They said things like, “He is a glutton, and a drunkard! His friends are sinners and tax collectors” — that is his friends are common street criminals and white-collar thieves.

There is a time when the patience of Christ runs out. Such is the case here. Jesus speaks these words in judgment and pity on those rejecting him in those 3 cities. Woe means, “O how greatly you will suffer!” “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.  But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.” (Matthew 11:21-22)

Tyre and Sidon are OT cities that were wicked idolatrous (cf. Isa 23; Ezekiel 26–28; Amos 1:9–10). He continues comparing Capernaum with the city of Sodom, as the prime example of a wicked city in the bible and a warning for all generations of God’s judgment. Remember it was in Sodom that Lot offered his daughters to a mob so that they would not attack the messengers from God. Thus Sodom became know for its sexual sins, rape, and homosexuality. “And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades [i.e., Hell]. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the Day of Judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.” (Matthew 11:23-24). 

Some of you are just like the people of these towns Jesus mentions. You have been in the presence of Christ’s Spirit. You have heard the gospel of Christ. You have even seen him do things that only God can do. You grew up in the church, or have been among believers. You have read the bible, yet you refuse to come to Jesus in faith. Let me remind you that God’s patience with you is meant to lead you to come to Christ. Yet you remain in unbelief, loving your sin more than coming to Jesus in faith. Pray against a sinful contentment with being so near to Christ, the things of God and the work of the Spirit —without a participation in Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit.

For each one of us there is a season for coming to Christ, a window of time. For some it closes at your death. For others like those in these cities, it closes with a hardness of heart in unbelief when God turns you over to your own sinful heart. In 2 Corinthians, quoting from Isaiah, Paul identifies this season of time as the time of grace, the day of salvation. His point? Now is the time. Don’t put it off. You may find yourself like Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum unable to repent because the day of salvation— the time of grace—has closed. 2 Corinthians 6:2  says “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”  

The Praise of Jesus

Right after this proclamation of judgement on the cities, Jesus breaks out into a spontaneous prayer of thanksgiving to God. “At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.’” (vv. 25-26) A better translation for the word “thank” in the ESV is the word “praise”. This is a prayer of praise from Jesus to God the Father! Jesus is praising God the father for his sovereignty over revelation. Jesus is praising God, because no one can know him, unless God wills revelation according to his “gracious will”. 

Several years ago, I attended a bible study that ceased meeting on this verse. Someone in the group said, “I cannot believe in a God sovereign like that.” That was the end of the small group. Yet, here it is: Jesus is praying a prayer of praise over God’s sovereignty. 

What can we say about God’s sovereign and gracious revealing work from verses 25-26?

1. God does this concealing and revealing according to his “gracious will”. When he reveals it is both gracious and according to his will. We come to know God by God’s own self-revelation. We don’t expose him to our revelation and analysis. He is not some moon rock we scoop up and analyze. We don’t study him first, he reveals himself to us. It is gracious because we don’t deserve knowing him. We are sinners, so his self-revelation is a mercy; it is grace to undeserving sinful human beings.

2. God has sovereignly concealed himself from “the wise and understanding”: Who are the wise and understanding refers to people who? They are those who:

•   are seeking to know God by wisdom
•   are seeking to know God by religious learning
•   are seeking to know God by religious knowledge 
•   are seeking God according to the wisdom of the world. (1 Corinthians 1:20)
•   are seeking God on their terms, in their way
•   are seeking God wisdom of the plethora of religious books at Barnes and Noble

The wise and understanding are the opposite of the needy, dependent, little children; so we can infer by contrast that the wise are the self-sufficient, independent, and self-dependent not God dependent. God has concealed himself from the wise. Why? Because, in his self-revelation, God intends to destroy human wisdom. And in his self-revelation, God intends to exalt his sovereign gracious all-wise eye-opening power. Paul answers in 1 Corinthians, “19 For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom... 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:18–25) 

3. God has sovereignly revealed himself to “little children” according to his gracious will. Who are they? We have seen this in recent weeks. Matthew 18:3  says “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The self-sufficient know-it-alls don’t know God because God conceals himself from them; but to the little children God reveals himself. 

The Authority of Jesus

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (v. 27). The word translated “know” means “to fully know” or “to decisively know”. Jesus actually knows God. God the father, in making himself known to human beings has delegated his self-revelation to the only one who knows him—and knows humanity—his Son, Christ Jesus. 

Let’s remove the negatives, and think it through moving backwards from end of verse 27 to the beginning of the verse. Jesus is saying (my paraphrase), "Only those the Son of God has chosen to reveal God the Father, know God. The reason that is so, is because only the Son of God knows the Father and only the Father knows Son of God. Thus, the Father has handed all things over to the Son of God. What things? Namely, and most immediately, the authority to choose those to whom to reveal God."

Do you see the authority of Jesus here? If you are into pluralism (all ways lead to God) or a syncretism  (Jesus plus Mohammed or Buddha or plus whatever) you will be offended if you take seriously the plain meaning of the words of Jesus. Jesus says elsewhere: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) and “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”(John 14:9). Jesus clearly is the only one who reveals God.

I hope this hits you as a wave of mercy that Jesus speaks the woes to the unrepentant. He praises God for the hiding and revealing. He has the authority to reveal God. What’s he going to do with that authority?

The Invitation of Jesus

Remember, aim in this message is that you (and I), to go in faith exclusively to Jesus Christ as his disciples and receive the rest our souls are longing for. Jesus invitation in verse 28 is our application: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Clearly and unapologetically, Jesus invites us to himself. Jesus says, “Come to me”, the call is not

•  to church. 
•  to volunteer in the church. 
•  to the mission field. 
•  to Christian college. 
•  to seminary. 
•  to study. 
•  to merely to facts about God. 
•  to the merely to bible. 
•  to your one on one mentor.
•  to your small group
•  to your discipleship program.

We hope and pray that all those are means of discipleship. The call of Jesus is this: “Come to Me!” After one of the services, someone came up and told me how a discipleship mentor twisted this call to come to Jesus; he was discipled by a mentor who used his role and authority to abuse him. We are disciples of Jesus alone. 

One of the distinctions that separates real Christian discipleship from the perversions is that this: The invitees: The invitation is for “all who labor and are heavy laden” (v. 28) Those who labor are those in some state of weariness.These laboring, weary ones are carrying heavy burdens.  Literally, it is a person, a laborer, carrying a pack of goods on his back: Hard working, tired and burdened. Figuratively, it is a person seeking favor with God, but loaded up with the burdens of religion. 

There are two passages describing these burdens. Jesus said this about the Pharisees, “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.” (Matthew 23:4).  Likewise, Peter stood up against putting the ‘yoke’ of keeping the Jewish ceremonial law on Christian non-Jews because it was a terrible burden for Jew and gentile (Acts 15:10). The Promise is this “I will give you rest” (vs. 28). Meaning, I will refresh you.

Jesus continues, with the call to discipleship, in verse 29, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me”. Do you know what a yoke is?  Literally, a yoke was a wooden collar used to harness two oxen together across the shoulders to pull enormous loads and do heavy farm work such as plowing or tilling the soil. Figuratively, a yoke was used to describe the law which a young Jewish boy bound himself at bar mitzvah. The point was a solemn commitment. The rabbis used ‘yoke’ to refer to school. 

I take the phrase, “Take my yoke upon you” in the discipleship sense. Take my teaching. Live by my teaching. “Learn from me.”  In it’s most simple sense, to be a disciple of Jesus is to learn from him. That’s what disciple means: pupil, student, leaner. “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” (vv 29-30). Jesus has a yoke, but he reminds us that he himself is gentle and lowly, servant-like. He dies for us.

Conclusion

How is his yoke easy and his burden light? According the the new covenant god gives us rebirth. He says “I will put my spirit in them and cause them to walk in my ways”. Jesus calls us to believe in him. God gives us the gift of the Spirit in order to love him, to follow after him. Not only that but the spirit is in us in order to cause us to walk in his way. Jesus doesn’t just way “Love one another”. He says, “Love one another as I have loved you”. Do you see the difference? Its not a cold command to just love. Lastly, God’s divine power has given us all we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1). How? Through knowledge in him, by which he has given us these great and precious promises. We receive the promises because of Christ revealing these promises to us. Here is our application: go to Jesus. Find your soul’s rest and satisfaction in him.