Matthew: The Way of Rest

So do you ever feel like you're carrying a load that's just too heavy?

Any anybody know what I'm talking about?

Maybe not.

Uh do you ever feel like you're carrying something you were never meant to carry?

Like, okay, so the load's heavy, but even the fact that even you feel like the load you're carrying, you were never meant to carry it.

And there's a there's a restlessness to this, a deep inner restlessness that can stem from a whole bunch of different things.

It can stem from shame, it can stem from self-worth, it can stem from fear, anxiety.

It can even be that anxiety that you won't become the person you thought you would become, or the person that your parents thought you should become, or the person of faith you thought you should become.

Is it possible, possible, that you're carrying something you were never meant to carry?

And so there's that passage that Sam read.

Come to me, Matthew 11, 28 through 30.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

This is Jesus talking to religious people.

Take my yoke upon you.

So he's saying, My way of life, my teaching, take it 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, my way of life, my teaching is easy, and my burden is light.

So several years ago, Christy, my wife, she talked me into running the Peachtree Road Race with her.

I've ran the Peachtree Road Race one time.

So it tells you something about how much I loved the Peachtree Road Race.

I know many of you, probably most of you love the Peachtree Road Race to say you don't like the Peachtree Road Race to say like you don't like babies or America, you know, those kinds of things, but I I did not like it.

I've let her down in many ways.

We don't drink coffee in the morning and share our devotions together.

That's one way I've done that.

Peace Tree Road Race is another one.

And so I know you love it, so just bear with me.

My experience was it's very hot.

I'm in a very long line that doesn't end for a very long time.

And you weren't really running, you were more dodging.

There's one group of people that I wanted to be with, and they were the people on the side of the road.

They're eating omelets and drinking mimosas, and I'm I'm like, why am I not there?

Like, they are the those are my people over there.

It was just worse than I thought.

It was worse than I thought it would be.

It was just a burden for me.

I think Christy had a great time, she's having a great time, and I'm just like, this is awful.

I so I know you love it, you love it.

But some of you love The Bachelor, so I'm just saying we're all different.

Okay?

That's just what I'm saying.

But there was one thing that there's one thing that I uh that I experienced that was great.

And it's as you run, there's these kind of little tables on the side, little tents, and there's there's water set out for you.

And it's like the one place where you can go and stop running, and you're not the lazy guy who didn't train.

It's a legitimate resting place along the way, and people are dumping water over their heads and shirt.

One guy dumped it down his shorts, and that was weird and strange, but I saw it.

I didn't do it.

I didn't do that.

Uh but I had a cup of water, and it was it was fantastic.

It was these little stands, little cups of water.

There's nice people there.

You take a cup of water.

You know, amidst all the misery and all the frustration, here's this moment under this tent where you can get a little bit of refreshment.

It's this feeling, you've had it, you've had it.

It's this feeling that amidst the misery is going to be okay.

You're gonna make it.

It's a moment of rest.

And here's the wording it's bountiful refreshment, is what it is.

And this is what Jesus is saying.

Amidst the frustration of life, come to me.

All you who are weary and burdened, which is you and it is me.

Come to me and I will give you bountiful refreshment.

He says, My way of life is different from the burdensome striving.

It's a different race.

It's light and it's free.

So a yoke was you know, you probably know what a yoke is.

A yoke is put upon an animal out in the fields, and the yoke is the animal pulls the yoke, and it usually is just so heavy for that animal to pull and to get the work done.

And so he comes into that imagery, and that imagery was also used as for a rabbi's teaching at the time.

So a rabbi's teaching would be called their yoke.

And so he comes into that imagery and he says, okay, so so much of these yokes, this way of life, these teachings, so much is burdened.

It's about what you do.

And he comes into that and he says, you're carrying a load you were never meant to carry.

My load is different.

It's bountiful refreshment.

See, it's it's so easy for people of faith, so easy for people of faith to begin to use spirituality as just another way for merit.

You use merit in your workplace, you use merit in your neighborhood, you use merit for value out in the world, and then you come into faith or spirituality and you just use merit again.

And it's just the same thing.

It's the same thing in a different place.

And Jesus says, no, no, no, no.

Like that's a different yoke.

My way of life, faith in Jesus, is a different yoke.

So two points, and we say these all the time.

And it's not just me saying them, it's anybody who gets up and preaches on a Sunday morning, it's our classes.

We say these all the time, but it's the heartbeat, it's the power.

And so two points.

Point number one, you are relieved of having to justify yourself before God.

That's no longer on your list.

This is why the yoke is easy and light, is because your work is easy in light.

It means you're justified before God by his work for you, Christ on the cross, not your work before him.

So it means your work is easy in light.

The cross is sufficient.

That abstract idea that God loves you and his love is unconditional, that abstract idea, concrete in the cross for you to know and understand God's humility, his care, his favor toward you that is secure.

Right?

It's that exchange we talk about all the time that our sin and shame is put upon him, and then his righteousness is put upon us.

So we're secure based on his work for us, not our work for him.

That's what we wake up into every day.

That's why the yoke is easy and light.

And when we learn this and learn to walk in this, and we learn more about it, and learn to trust in it, we learn that we're secure, which means we don't have to pretend we're something we're not.

That's light and that's free.

Christian mystic writer Richard Rohr, he says that it's this place of rest, this place of rest is where we can finally see and hear and understand the darkness that's always been there.

So I said last week, to pretend like the bear in your kitchen that's going through your fridge is not in your kitchen going through your fridge does not mean the bear in your kitchen going through your fridge is not there.

He's still there.

Whether you roll over in your bed or not, he's still there.

Whether you shove it down, some reality of your brokenness or imperfection, whether you shove it down or not, it's still there.

And actually the shoving of it or the putting on the blinders to it actually makes it worse.

It doesn't go away.

But to live in a measure of honesty and confession before God, where you're secure in His work for you, and so you can see these things inside of yourself and confess them over and say, I'm imperfect, and this is who I am, and you live in the grace of God towards you, now you live in a reality, live in the reality to receive before God.

Now the yoke is easy.

And what happens?

It's crazy.

You don't become a crazy, oh, you're gonna run off and do crazy stuff.

Actually, transformation begins.

So it's point number one.

You are relieved from having to justify yourself before God.

Point number two, you are relieved of having to create your own value.

I mean, we just exhaust ourselves.

I exhaust myself trying to create my own value.

Listen, you're already loved.

You're already loved, you're already valuable, you're already beloved.

This week I found myself getting defensive about something.

I was defensive, and because I was defensive, then I become offensive, because I'm defensive, then you become offensive, and and all because, why?

Because I'm insecure.

If you're being defensive or offensive, it's because you're insecure.

And so I was insecure that my value was secure, and because I'm insecure, then I become defensive, or I become on the offense, and you're on the defense, and you're on the offense, and all of a sudden you're playing a game, you don't have to play.

I mean, there's the rest.

There's why the yoke is easy and light, it's because it's a game you don't have to play.

The idea of creating your own value is a game you don't have to play.

And so if you're on the defense or the offense in reaction and relating to people, you're in a game you don't have to play.

You're relieved of that.

Because your value before God is secure.

Your value as a human being is secure in his love toward you.

And it's not just abstract.

We know it in the cross.

Do you ever feel like you're pulling a heavy load?

It's probably not from the practicals in your life.

That's what I always think.

I always think it's from the practicals in my life.

It's just so heavy, it's I'm feeling so thin, I'm feeling thin, and I'm so thin, and I need to feel whole.

And because it's the practicals of my life, and it's almost always the practicals are revealing something deeper.

It's revealing something about where I place my trust, where I place my value, where I'm understanding my value, where I'm understanding my absolution and my redemption and my position before God.

I've been learning this week that we live our lives between our lived lives and our unlived lives.

So we live our lives between our lived lives and our unlived lives.

I didn't come up with those terms.

A British psychologist Adam Phillips, who wrote this book called Missing Out.

He came up with this idea.

And that we live our lives between our lived lives and our unlived lives, meaning this.

You want those friends, but you don't have them.

So you have your lived life, your unlived life.

You want those friends, you don't have them.

You want that house, you don't have it.

You want that job, you don't have it.

You want that sense of purpose, you don't have it.

You want that sense of peace, you don't have it.

You want that sense of wholeness, you don't have it, you want that, you don't have it.

And so we live our lives in this frustrating middle ground.

And we just think, oh, if I just get my act together, it's gonna be better.

It's extremely frustrating.

It's exhausting.

So what do we do?

Well, we try to work our way out of this frustrating middle ground, right?

That's why we we love a church.

I think we can come in and work our way out of this frustrating middle ground.

Try to escape out of it, right?

I mean, we go to Las Vegas for a few days.

The Philson Leather Goods catalog.

Does anybody get the Philson?

Anybody?

You laugh because apparently some of you get it.

I bought a wallet.

I got a wallet for Father's Day from Philson Leather Goods.

Their cap don't get their catalog, by the way.

It's the most beautiful people, and they're in canoes on mountain lakes with a leather handbag.

And you're just thinking, if I have that leather handbag.

Oh.

It'd be wonderful.

Right?

I mean, just to escape for a moment this frustrating middle ground.

Whether it be in a worldly way or some religious striving way, just that's our natural reaction.

But it's a it's a blind reaction.

It's hopeless.

It doesn't give you rest.

Either way, it actually puts you to work.

So I try to have a lunch appointment every day, but I love, I actually love the days when I don't have a lunch appointment because I go home and I fix lunch and I sit in my chair and I turn on a Seinfeld episode.

And it's just this great 24 minutes of rest amidst a day of work.

And that's usually how we think about rest, right?

I mean, rest is uh it's the nap.

Rest is the vacation.

We usually think about rest as the separation from reality.

So I'm gonna separate from this frustrating middle ground that I exist in, from who we really are.

So we work really hard to escape.

But here's the good news.

This is the good news.

Jesus is talking about a way of life here that's not a separation from reality.

Because what we see throughout the scriptures is that God goes into messes.

He goes into frustration, into hurt, into suffering.

That God's actually in the frustration middle ground with you, and he wants to come into that and start to help us live a life of rest while we are in this.

And see, it's the only place you'll ever live.

And it's the only place you'll ever truly be loved by God, because that's the place He lives.

So Jesus says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened.

And you come not because you come not because you're so dedicated.

You're not.

You are not, neither am I.

That is not why you come to the Lord.

You do not come to the Lord because you are so dedicated that you don't.

You come because He is so irresistibly loving and gracious to you.

And when you see it, you come.

This is what Jesus is saying.

He says, He says, I'm gentle and lowly.

Here's what he's saying.

He's saying, dare to see and understand God as gentle and lowly.

Dare to see God that He would have regard toward you like a father to a child, like a mother to a child, but not as a policeman, not as an angry school teacher.

See, rest is not found in transferring a merit mentality and spirituality, but rather embracing a completely different way of life.

That's what Jesus is talking about: a different yoke, a different way of life, a different teaching.

Your list for today is long enough.

You don't have to add to it self-worth and forgiveness and redemption.

That work is God's work on your behalf.

So, my brothers and sisters, dare to begin to understand God and his regard toward you as gracious and secure.

And may you live in that rest and may you walk in the way of freedom, for his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you that you are not the policeman or the angry school teacher waiting to get us.

But you have shown yourself as gentle and lowly, a different way for us to live.

And we confess so often we live in a frustrating middle ground between our lived lives and our unlived lives.

The life we have and the life we want.

And we get so frustrated, and out of that we do some crazy stuff.

And we thank you that you meet us there, not when we get our acts together or when we get perfect.

Thank you that you love us as we are, not as we should be.

Help us to trust more in the work of Jesus for us that we might know this freedom and this lightness.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.