A Place for the Burdened | Matthew 11:25-30

We are going to read today from Matthew chapter 11 verses 25 to 30.

Matthew 11:25–30

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.

Yes Father, for this is what you are pleased to do.

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.

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.

Good morning church. I suffer with the same thing that Tony does. I'm not as tall as Tom, so I'm just going to put that there. Can you hear me?

Great.

Church, before we get into these wonderful words that we have before us this morning, why don't we come to our Father in prayer? Would you please join me?

Father God, we thank you that we are not people stumbling in the dark, but that your Son is the light, and that He has come to us.

We have the Gospel, and we ask this morning as we peer into these wonderful words that your Holy Spirit, your most Holy Spirit, would show us more of Christ,

and that we would be a people not with our eyes on ourselves, but on our Lord and Saviour.

We ask for this, for the sake of your church, for the sake of Christ, and in His name, amen.

So if you've been with us for the past few weeks, you'll know that we're back in the book of Matthew,

and since chapter 11, we've further been exploring the identity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

In verses 1 to 6, Matthew showed us that John and his disciples, they questioned if Jesus was the Messiah or not,

and they did this because Jesus, well, he hadn't met their expectations.

He hadn't come to Israel to overthrow their enemies like they thought he would,

to which they were shown by Jesus drawing on the book of Isaiah that the Messiah's ministry would be so much more than judgment and fire.

No, though those things are certainly coming, Jesus, he showed John and his followers that in the first coming of the Messiah, there would be people healed of various infirmities,

and that the captives would be set free, something Jesus just so happened to be doing in their very midst.

Second, in verses 7 to 19, Jesus challenged the crowds about this very same John, his forerunner, the forerunner of the Christ,

because he was so much more than the crowd's first thought of him, and that's because John was the one in whom Malachi said would come and prepare the way for none other than the Lord himself.

And then third last week in verses 20 to 24, Mark Vivian wonderfully showed us that the kingdom of heaven had indeed come close in the life and ministry of Jesus,

so much so that those who rejected Jesus would be judged that much more harshly because they had had greater exposure to the gospel than ever before.

Every step of the way in this chapter, Matthew has shown us that this Jesus of Nazareth was so much more than just a traveling preacher who had some nice things to say.

Now Matthew has shown us that this Jesus that he loved and followed, that Jesus understood himself to be the fulfilment of all that the Old Testament pointed to, and that in his very life and doctrine was the way to enter the kingdom of heaven and have eternal life.

Well, church, this morning Matthew is again going to show us the majesty of heaven's king and how Jesus is the one who gives eternal rest.

First in verses 25 and 26, we're going to see this unique relationship between Jesus and his father.

Second in verse 27, I want to show you something of how Jesus understood himself, which third in verses 28 to 30 will make sense of the Lord's grand invitation to all people and all sinners.

So if you have your Bibles with you this morning, let's have a look at the first two verses there, 25 and 26.

We read at that time Jesus said, I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you've hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.

Yes Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

Right, so the words that I just read out to you will be best understood by having a think about the context that we just thought about.

You see, Jesus had been touring the northern parts of Israel and healing and preaching, and as we've seen, not a lot of people were accepting of what he had to say or wanting to sign up to a life of being his disciple.

Now if we think about it with what we heard last week in the verses that are preceding the ones we're looking at this morning, Jesus's tour of Galilee kind of crescendoed with a curse on the cities where he had ministered the most, because people didn't repent at his preaching.

And church, it's in this moment that Jesus, that he could have been profoundly discouraged.

I mean think about it, he'd been walking many miles, probably sleeping pretty rough and preaching and ministering to many, many people.

And for all his time and effort, loads of people had rejected the good news of the kingdom, his miracles, and even Jesus himself.

Incredibly tough, especially if you know what that meant for those people.

And I want you to be aware of this context because it's in the midst of that very backdrop that our Lord, he doesn't begin to complain, but pray to God with amazing thanksgiving.

That's what we witness our Lord doing in these first few words here.

In the midst of hard times and disappointments, our Lord turns to God and he praises his sovereignty.

And he praises his mercy in the fact that though some had rejected him, many had rejected him, God had caused some out of the masses to actually respond to the gospel.

Let me show you what I'm speaking about here.

First, our Lord praises God's sovereignty by saying, I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth.

That's language there to say that it is in fact God who is the one over everything that happens.

As it's just been said, Jesus could have been greatly discouraged by his circumstances. His ministry was being rejected in real time by many, many people in his nation.

But here we see that the first thing he does is he directs his thoughts to God's role in all of this. And he finds encouragement in the fact that everything that has happened has happened under the sovereign hand of the one who was totally in control of heaven and earth.

Church, we might pause here for a moment and think of our own circumstances and think of our own attitudes in those times when we've been discouraged and disappointed in our lives.

I don't know about you, but the last thing that I tend to do is to go into the prayer closet and thank God in the midst of it all.

Brothers and sisters, let us all take note of our Lord's wonderful example here.

The first place he goes isn't to Netflix, isn't to his mates down the pub, isn't to the shopping centre to relieve some pressure, but to God in prayer.

And as we see here, Jesus takes such comfort in God's sovereignty. It's a beautiful picture for us all this morning.

In the midst of hard circumstances, we see that turning to our God and praising and thanking him is actually an antidote to those depressing and dark thoughts that so often tempt us to fret and give up and pull back.

When we've been discouraged in our efforts.

Just before we move on, I want you to notice something else that our Lord does for us here.

And I think it's worth mentioning because of the language that comes out in his prayer.

Notice that he calls God Father. He calls him Father.

And he does this because we all know Jesus had a special relationship with God.

But as we heard this morning in the Lord's prayer that we pray together, Jesus graciously invites his disciples to do the same.

And isn't it interesting that at just at the time of great discouragement and disappointment that our Lord highlights the fact that God, that he's not just sovereign, but that he is Father.

The beautiful picture we see here, something that I think all disciples are encouraged to do.

When discouraging times come when disappointment bubbles away in our hearts, it's actually a wonderful opportunity to remind ourselves that the sovereign God of the universe is in fact our loving Father as well.

I know with my own children that when I have to make decisions and do things to love and protect them, that if they don't understand those decisions and their ramifications in the moment, that they can feel terribly disappointed.

But as they're getting older and maturing in their relationship with me, they're understanding more and more and more that when Dad has to make a decision about some things that though they might not get it in the moment, though it might not make sense to their little universes,

they're starting to understand that I make decisions because they know it's because I'm loving and protecting them and that sometimes I do things because I'm working something out for their good that they just can't see yet.

And that is a fact that we have to be reminded of time and time and time and time again in our own Christian walk.

We have a father in heaven that loves and cares for his children.

And though we might not get it in the moment because of our status in Christ that care and love and fatherly affection towards us never ever changes.

That's the kind of confidence we should have in the midst of disappointments when we go to God in prayer, not only does he know and see, but he loves us as his own children.

That's the confidence that our Lord demonstrates for us all here.

So Jesus turns his attention to God's sovereignty, his fatherly affection and notices that he praises God for his mercy and not only revealing the gospel, but causing some to embrace it.

Saying there in verse 25, you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.

She under the old covenants, the gospel was preached to Israel through types. They had the law and they had the sacrifices and God's children embraced these things by faith as sufficient for that time.

Yet in the ministry of Jesus, the time, the fullness of time for the gospel to be clearly set forth had come.

And Jesus, well, he praises God for the good news of the kingdom being revealed in and through him and his ministry.

But notice something of the language there in verse 25 of our text.

Yes, Jesus praises God for revealing these things, but his praise for God is aimed towards the fact that the gospel, that it's been revealed to little children, which is to say, the humble.

Now, we're not going to go too deep on this this morning for time's sake.

There is a lot going on here in this passage, but I want to point your attention to just one thing here.

There's a distinction that our Lord makes for us.

He essentially says that those who have had the gospel revealed to them.

Well, they were the ones whom God was pleased to reveal it to because like little children, they knew they couldn't enter the kingdom by themselves.

They are the poor in spirit and the meek in other words, blessed are they.

But to the wise and learned, those who had the gospel hidden, well, they didn't think they needed anything from God and his Messiah.

I think the brilliant pastor theologian JC Ryle helps us here.

He says one thing that stands out in scripture as a great practical truth.

Those from whom the gospel is hidden are usually wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.

Yet to those from the gospel is revealed generally humble and willing to learn.

The Apostle Peter puts like this in the fifth chapter of his first book.

God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.

Church, essentially what's being said here is that there is one thing that will keep you out of heaven and that will prevent you from ever seeing the face of the Lord Jesus Christ face to face.

And that's your own pride.

That's what we see here.

So long as any of us think that we are something when we are nothing and that we're doing a pretty good job of getting ourselves into heaven,

well, we will never see the need for the cross and cast ourselves wholly upon the savior of the world.

No one, but no one is in the kingdom of heaven because they thought themselves worthy of it.

Knowing God's infinite wisdom and his plan of redemption in his sovereignty, he mercifully reveals the gospel to the humble.

And despite our wayward pride, he causes people to truly and utterly know that Christ is their only hope in life and death.

We should all stand in absolute awe of God's work that this can happen to anyone, including us.

Brothers and sisters, this is a wonderful, it's amazing thing that we are reflecting on this morning.

If you have seen your lawlessness, if you've seen your wretchedness, understood your spiritual bankruptcy before God,

it is only because the Lord of heaven and of earth has so chosen to reveal these things to you and hold Christ out for you.

And none of this is because we are worthy.

No, we have Christ because God so chose to reveal him to the poor in spirit and humble in heart.

So in verses 25 and 26, we see the Father's sovereignty and our Lord's praise of it.

Now in verse 27, we get something of Jesus' understanding of himself.

And in just a moment, we're going to look at the call of the gospel which Jesus gives to us in verses 28 to 30.

But before we do that, we need to see something of exactly who Jesus saw himself to be.

We're going to race through this, but if you have any questions, please come and find me and I'd love to speak to you about it.

So first, Jesus knew that he had exclusive and absolute authority given to him by the Father.

We see this in verse 27. Jesus says, all things have been committed to me by my Father.

Now if we really step back and have a think about what the Lord Jesus is saying here, it's absolutely mind blowing.

Because he's saying that he has the same authority as none other than God himself, the Lord of heaven and earth.

Because all things as we see here, all things have been committed to him.

Now that's a phrase that not only points us back into eternity past before God the Son took on flesh,

but also points us to something of the future.

Whereafter the resurrection of our Lord, he will say to his disciples, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

So if we think about this, this is to say that right now at this very moment, Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God, ruling and reigning.

All things are in the palm of his hand.

And here we're reminded of this this morning.

Second, Jesus claims that his relationship with the Father is exclusive and unbroken, saying no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son.

Now the thing that humans lost in the garden was intimacy with God and salvation comes by being reconciled to our Creator, knowing Him.

And so because Jesus has this exclusive relationship with the Father that's never ever been broken by sin,

Jesus is saying that when we come to Him, we are really coming to the Father as well.

To put it simply, to come to Jesus to be reconciled to Him is to be reconciled with our Father as well, which leads us to the third thing Jesus has to say here.

And that's that only Jesus can reveal the Father and save those whom He chooses.

Now why is this important for any of us to know this morning?

Well, because it helps us in 21st century Western Australia to know that we can trust the words of Jesus.

Because if we think about it, if Jesus didn't have all authority,

and then said, I have this exclusive relationship with the Father and I choose who to reveal Him to.

And if you come to me, I will give you eternal rest.

And how could any of us really know that He could follow through on any of those things?

Now it's incredibly important that we understand that Jesus has all things committed to Him by our Heavenly Father.

And that the Father is well pleased with the Son and that Jesus, that He has the authority to save those who would come to Him.

Which leads us to these vitally important words that we see there in verses 28 to 30.

Jesus says, come to me all of you who were weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I'm gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Brothers and sisters, look at what the Lord Jesus Christ promises here.

He promises true and real rest for those that would come to Him.

I don't have a clue what you're going through this morning or what's going on in your life this very moment.

But the Lord Jesus Christ, He promises for those who are burdened with sin and see their unrighteousness

and know that they stand before a holy God, that they're plagued with guilt and lawless deeds.

That there is a person to run to where you will find true and eternal spiritual rest.

Now notice that Jesus calls those kinds of people to Himself.

Notice that He doesn't say go to a particular church or a particular pastor for that cure.

Those things are helpful no doubt but the cure for the restless soul that hungers and thirsts after righteousness is Jesus Christ Himself.

He says elsewhere, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

And He says to anyone who is listening, if you trust me, if you place your faith in me, then I will give you the rest that you seek.

No one can make that kind of claim. No human can make that kind of claim.

But as we've seen this morning, Jesus is no ordinary human.

And He can make that claim because all authority to reveal the Father and save His people has been given to Him.

And He makes that clear to us this morning and He says, if you are aware of your sin, if you rightly know that you deserve nothing but the judgment of God,

if you're drowning, if you're plagued by guilt, then come to me. I am the answer.

That is the answer that you are seeking.

If you're discouraged and you feel like there is no hope, then the answer is truly being held out to you in the Gospel this morning,

in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And just before we end our time together and worship our God and come to His table,

I want you to notice just a few promises that the Lord Jesus Christ makes here in these last few words.

Jesus gives true and eternal rest to anyone that would come to Him.

And until you're here this morning, you're saying to yourself, you don't know what I've done.

You don't know where I've been. You don't know who I've hurt. I don't deserve any of this.

Well, to be crystal clear with you this morning, none of us deserve the forgiveness of God.

None of us deserve forgiveness for the things that we've done. That's why the Bible speaks about what we're looking at this morning

as the grace of God, which means undeserved favour.

And so hear the word of the Lord this morning.

Jesus would say to anyone who would desire Him, simply come,

and He will give you true rest from the guilt and the eternal consequence of your sin.

Friend, He is the only one that can do that. No amount of religion, no amount of church going,

no amount of good deeds can ever clear the debts and wash away the stain of sin.

But Jesus can and He promises to do so if you would simply come.

There's more. Jesus doesn't just cure the soul of its guilt, the stain of sin for all eternity.

He also offers us a new way of living, a way of living that we are meant to live in light of our God.

We see this here on verse 29. Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

Many of us in this room this morning know that when we act out on our wicked desires and live

for our selfish ambitions that we're living in a way that isn't good,

much of what we are ashamed of now has come from doing things our own way.

So we know that something needs to change. And notice it in verse 29 here.

Jesus says that He is gentle. He is gentle with the way, with those that will come to Him.

Yes, to come to Jesus is to turn from the way that you were going to the way that God would have you on,

which Jesus says elsewhere is the straight and narrow.

But notice that Jesus won't absolutely snap you in half when you get things wrong

or trip over or veer off the beaten path, which you will.

No, Jesus promises to deal with His people gently because He cares for His people.

That's the language of our Lord there in verse 29. He is gentle.

We also see something of His humility.

I mean, think about who is speaking these words this morning.

This wasn't just some sage or hippie in the first century. Jesus is God in the flesh.

Jesus is the King of kings. He's the Lord of lords.

He's the one who sits at the right hand of God with all power and authority given to Him.

And He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Eternal life and damnation is in His power.

That is the one who says that anyone from anywhere, if you would come to Him,

that He will care for you and treat you gently.

That's unbelievable humility.

That is the one who calls you in your sin this morning.

The King of the universe promises peace to the sinner if you're honest about yourself and throw yourself on Him.

The warning of Scripture is do not harden your heart while it is still called today.

Listen to the words of our Holy God.

Come to Jesus. He is the cure and He will never let you down.

That's His promise that He has the authority to hold out and keep for His people.

That's praying.

Father God, we are so thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no words to put to it.

We ask this morning that as we come to the table of our Lord,

that we would come with our eyes lifted to heaven in praise and worship of all that you have done for your people.

Father, where we are struggling, would you please mend our broken knees?

Would you lift us up so that we can follow hard after you?

That we would be disciples from a place of love for our Lord Jesus Christ?

That we would turn our attention by the work of the Spirit to the gospel in all areas?

We ask for this in Jesus' name. Amen.