Are you Weary?

Hey everyone, this is Josh from Encounter Church

Henley and thanks so much for tuning into our

podcast. Our prayer is that through this podcast

you can have an encounter with Jesus that'll

change your life. And now get ready for an inspiring

message from our preaching team. Today's teaching

text comes from Matthew chapter 11 verse 28 to

Matthew 11:28–30

30. 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 This is the word of the Lord Thank you,

Big Red. Last year I decided that I wanted to

set some goals that were gonna really, really

push me. Like really push me. I wanted to set

big, hairy, scary, audacious goals. And I set

seven of them and I completed one. So last year

went really really well for me I'm someone who

loves loves comfortable life the The pressure

-free cozy cozy life and and I've come to learn

that actually life That kind of life when it's

pursued is not a good life because the best things

in life are hard fought for and and hard usually

So one of my failed goals last year was that

I wanted to run a sub 20 minute 5k That's 20

minutes five kilometers in an under 20 minutes

and to run that you've got to run less than four

minutes a kilometer Which which is fast and this

body is not exactly built for speed This was

a big and scary goal and it required diligence

and training and to push myself and I needed

to because I had to get like minutes and minutes

faster than what I was currently running and

so I was training four times a week I was getting

better I was getting faster and I had I'd done

something to motivate motivate me where I'd written

down all of my friends on Strava's PB's for their

5k and I as a kind of hit list right to motivate

myself I'd go Go out for a run, like, and I'm

going out for a run, but I'm going in to take

down someone I went to high school with, who

I haven't seen in 10 years, so that I could cross

them off as weak and beneath me. So I'm not competitive

at all. The march of that year, I got this perfect

opportunity to cross some names off my list.

Ash and I went, we went for a little night away

in Victor Harbour. So it was park run, I was

ready, it was good conditions, race conditions.

But the race started and I was out of the blocks

way too fast. My first two kilometers were too

quick. So I gassed myself. I didn't pace myself.

And so even though my first two were quick, my

last three were really slow. And so overall my

run was not fast. And that really made me sad.

And that kind of burned me out of running for

a while because I put all this hard work in and

then I had It wasn't my endurance, it wasn't

my speed, it was actually my pacing that let

me down. It wasn't that I wasn't fit enough,

it was that I couldn't keep myself from being

either too fast or too slow. You see, pacing

actually matters. It matters in running and it

matters in life. The average person lives a long

time. If you're in your 20s, you probably have

like 50 or 60 more years left in... this world

so life is less like a sprint and actually more

like an ultra marathon and yet it seems like

whether you're in your 20s or in your 50s or

somewhere in between or above or below everyone's

tired everyone's weary are you weary today do

you feel like you you went you've been you've

been going too hard too early in your life you've

come out the blocks too fast Or you've been running

so fast for so long that you don't actually know

what it looks like to slow down. You don't even

know what, you can't even comprehend that. Are

you struggling under the weight of the obligations

and burdens of everyday life? The pressures of

what everyone wants from you. Work, family, school,

friends, the bank, the 19 extracurricular activities

your children do. If you've got children, you

any assignments up into your ears? Yet another

kindy birthday party. I mean, I'm just, I'm over

it at this point. Don't even get a week's notice

that there's a birthday party. But we have to

go, so it's gotta happen. We struggle under the

weight of too much, but we also struggle under

the weight of too little. We have these thought

patterns of I should be doing more. I should

be this or that at this point in my life. I should

be working more. Or I should be working less.

I should own a house. I should study more. But

I should also have more time with my kids. I

should have more kids. You can't say I should

have less kids. I should exercise more. I should

eat better. I should pray more. I should do more

with this life that I have. We struggle with

too much. and we also struggle with too little

and everyone seems tired, everyone seems weary.

How do we find the right balance? How do we find

the right pacing in our lives? And as the church,

people who have access to the living God every

moment of their lives, shouldn't this be different

for us? I wonder if you're weary tonight. Well

Jesus in our teaching text, he tells us how to

find rest. He has the solution. He says, are

you weary? Come to me. He doesn't say come to

church. He doesn't say come to religion. He doesn't

say come to a denomination or he doesn't say

come to caffeine. He says come to me. He doesn't

say come to the things that we do because we

think we will find rest in them. He doesn't say

come to a romantic relationship. He doesn't say

come to TikTok. He doesn't say come to video

games. He says come to me. He doesn't say come

to sex. He doesn't say come to substances. He

doesn't say come to retail therapy or online

shopping. He doesn't say come to fitness. He

doesn't say come to books. That one was for me.

He doesn't say come and stay on top of your work

while you're on holidays. He says come to me.

I will give you rest. See, we look for rest in

all these things. We look to all these things

and more to ease the weariness in our lives,

but they are best taking the edge off and at

worst, distracting ourselves to death. If we

want to find true lasting rest, Jesus says, come

to me. I'll give it to you. Okay, Jesus, but

how are you going to give us it to us? How are

you going to give us rest? this is what he says

he says take my yoke upon you now yoke if you

don't know it and and i didn't uh is a piece

of wood because i'm not a farm boy that ties

two oxen together so you you can hook up a load

to it that it can carry which was called a burden

a yoke is a tool of work so jesus saying you

want to rest it's time to work makes sense right

you're weary Because you are yoked to heavy burdens,

Jesus says. So take my yoke upon you. Take my

instrument for carrying a heavy burden upon you

and you will find rest. It's curious, isn't it?

You might think Jesus would give us rest by just

taking our yoke off of us, right? But He says

no. He says you'll find, you actually find rest

by swapping other yokes out for His. See the

yoke is a well -used metaphor in the Bible which

uses a metaphor for submission and obligation

and even slavery Isaac who's one of the old patriarchs

in the Old Testament He gives a sub -par blessing

to his son Esau because his other son stole the

good one And this is what he says you will live

by your sword and you will serve your brother

But when you decide to break free you will shake

his yoke from your neck It's an obligation to

submit and serve to his brother as a yoke. Jeremiah

in the book of Jeremiah is a prophet is told

by the Lord to put a yoke around his own neck

and then go to the king of the time Zedekiah

to command him to submit to the yoke of Babylon

so that the people can live. See a yoke is a

common metaphor for an obligation to submit to

something and in Jesus time what it become most

known for is in terms of God's law. See, correct

worship was to yoke yourself to the commandments

passed down to Moses. It was the obligations

you must fulfill to submit to the law of the

Lord, which is not just what every good Judean

wanted to do. It's not just what they wanted

to do. It's what they knew they had to do to

be saved, to be right with God. They had to keep

the law perfectly. But the Pharisees, the religious

teachers of the day, had piled up and piled up

obligations onto the people. They had made the

burden so heavy. They said, if you want to be

right with God, you have to do this enormous

list of rules and regulations. And Jesus calls

them out for this in Matthew 23. He says this,

the scribes and the Pharisees, they sit on Moses'

seat. Therefore, do whatever they teach you and

follow it, but do not do as they do. For they

do not practice what they teach. They tie up

heavy burdens, hard to bear, and they lay them

on the shoulders of others. But they themselves

are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.

Do you see the yoke language there? The obligations

that you must do to be right with God that the

Pharisees put on the shoulders of the people

is on their shoulders. They tie it to their shoulders.

It's heavy and it's hard to bear. And at worst,

they won't even lift a finger to help move them.

The life that the Pharisees call the people to

live is hard and it's heavy. And the Pharisees,

they're useless in the effort. They don't practice

what they preach. They don't carry the same burdens

that they heap on others. See, a yoke was what

you must do to be right with God. And the Pharisees,

they heaped on things that they taught the people

that they must do to be right with God. But Jesus

says, come to me. So here's the thing, we are

all yoked to something. We're all under submission

or obligation. We are all slaves in a way to

something. We're all under a yoke that tells

us what we must do to be right with God and the

world. Maybe we are weary even in the church

because we are yoked to our career. We are yoked

to our family story. of what people in our family

do. Maybe we're yoked to what our friends think,

we're yoked to our cultural narratives of how

to live, we're yoked to our doom scrolling, mind

numbing video games, we're yoked to do -it -yourself

identities, yoked to our ideas of parenting,

or yoked to a religious mindset that says I must

do this to be saved. And every yoke is an obligation.

that comes with a burden. And so every yoke is

a kind of slavery and the burdens are heavy.

See, here's what I think Jesus is getting at.

Life is a burden. Life is work. Life is an obligation.

Life is a kind of slavery and there's no getting

around that. No matter how hard you try, you

actually can't avoid this. Even the pursuit of

freedom from obligation, freedom from work, freedom

from burdens in life will itself become a kind

of slavery. This is life. Life is a series of

obligations and burdens. Life is a series of

weight to carry. But friends, it's only in coming

to Jesus, in taking His yoke upon us, binding

ourselves to Him, taking on His way of life,

taking on His way of being right with God, that

we will find rest, that we will find balance,

that we will find pacing. And here's why. There

are no obligations you have in your life. No

other burden that you have to carry, no other

yoke tied around your neck, no other person that

tells you this is what you need to do to be right

with God or with the world gets in the yoke with

you, side by side, day by day and helps you pull.

No other yoke, no other giver of a yoke will

get in the saddle with you. Every other yoke

leaves you alone to strain against the weight

of the burdens they tie to you. Only Jesus. Ties

his obligation around your neck and then ties

it around his own as well So the Pharisees they

tied around the people's necks and then they

said good luck off you go. Have fun No other

set of obligations in your life will get alongside

you and pull Jesus says come to me Let me teach

you side by side day by day. I am gentle and

humble I won't push too hard. I won't let you

shoulder at all But I also won't let you get

away with not pulling at all and not trying.

Let me set the pace of your life. Let me set

the obligations. Let me set the burdens because

the burden I give is light and the yoke I give

is easy to bear. Why are we weary? Because we're

not living into the invitation of Jesus to come

to him and take his yoke upon us. And I think

there's two key ways that we don't live into

it. First one is this. We've got too many yokes.

We're weary because there are too many other

things that we are yoked to. Too many other things

that tie obligations around us and feel immovable

and heavy. And trying to pull the obligations,

the burdens of all these things plus Jesus is

exhausting. It's just too many burdens and Jesus

is inviting us to lay all the other yokes down

and take up His. And our first response is usually,

I couldn't possibly. I couldn't possibly. Let's

take buying or owning a house, one of the greatest

metaphorical and also quite literal yokes of

our day. The cultural life script of buying or

owning your own house is very, very strong. I've

felt it, the anxiety, the burden, the necessity,

the feeling that I have to own my own house or

I'm some kind of sub -adult, it's so strong.

And yet it's getting further and further out

of our reach and you have to compromise on so

much to even get into the market. But here's

the question. Is this a burden that Jesus is

inviting you to carry with him? Or is it the

yoke of your family, life or cultural script?

Are you laying the burden of owning a house on

yourself based on your preferences or your fear?

This is Jesus, the one who famously said, foxes

have dens and birds of the air have nests, but

the son of man has no place to lay his head.

Home ownership is probably not high on the list

of Jesus priorities for your life. It's probably

not. All right, what about marriage? One of the

greatest yokes of the modern church and of our

culture. There's a cultural narrative that says

that you are not a complete person unless you

are in a romantic relationship. And the church

is actually horrific at perpetuating this narrative,

but the Western culture that we live in is worse.

It's a script that says that you must find the

one, and if you can't, then there must be something

wrong with you. That you're less than human if

you can't find someone to date, and it's a crushing

obligation and burden for single people. I felt

it when I was a single person. But is this a

burden that Jesus is asking us to carry with

him? Jesus probably the most famous single person

ever. So famously single that best -selling authors

invent narratives that make him secretly not

single. No, Jesus was not a sub -human being

because he was single. Jesus in fact was the

most alive, most complete, most human being ever

to exist. So Jesus puts a nail in that one. You

know, marriage is a good thing, it's a living

metaphor for the marriage between Jesus and the

church, but at times it becomes for us an ultimate

thing. A thing that we say, if I just had that,

then I would be okay. And when we start saying

that, we tie internally or externally, it becomes

a yoke that we tie around our own necks. And

as a church and as married, and on behalf of

married people in the church, I want to say to

the single people in our midst, like, I'm sorry,

we have to be better. and not perpetuating this

cultural narrative about singleness. We have

to be better at not inadvertently tying the yoke

of marriage around our single people's necks.

We have to be better married, dating and single

at being a family together because marriage is

probably not that high on the list of Jesus priorities

for your life. It's just probably not. We do

this with so many things, so much. We take on

the yoke of other things and all their burdens

and obligations and we feel forced to carry them.

We do this with our education, our careers, our

families, our cultural narratives. We take on

the yokes of these things as ways that we to

truly live and ways we must live to be okay.

And all they do is make us tired. Because like

the Pharisees, these things that he burdens on

us, but they don't lift a finger to help. But

Jesus invites us to take off these yokes and

to yoke ourselves to him, which is easy to bear.

And his obligations are light. We'll find a way

to live that is filled with rest. And your first

response might be, but won't that cost me too

much? Because we actually tend to like our yolks.

We tend to like the burdens and obligations and

what they give us. Home ownership, success in

career and education, respect in our family or

community, a sense of having made it, of having

our lives together. But I wonder, do we count

the cost of these things? Do we realize what

these yolks are requiring from us? What they're

taking from us? How they're inhibiting life and

life to the forward Jesus? Both cost something.

So choose your cost. The cost of dragging around

these obligations or the cost of letting them

go. The second thing is this, it's setting our

own pace. You see, we might have let Jesus set

the obligations and burdens for our lives. We

might have held nothing back from him, but yet

we are still really weary. You know, with a yoke,

you have two oxen working a field. What happens

if one is stronger than the other? Or the weaker

of the two starts to pull ahead of the stronger?

or it lags behind. It creates friction. It creates

tension. The weaker ox is working harder than

they would have to work if they were in synergy

and flow with the stronger ox. And I think it's

the same for us. I think if we're going through

life side by side with Jesus, carrying the burden

He has given, like it is easy and light. But

if we pull ahead of the pace that Jesus is setting,

what are we gonna feel? We're gonna feel tired.

And if we fall behind the pace that Jesus is

setting, what are we going to feel? We're going

to feel tired. Either way, we're working harder

than we need to be. It's only when we fall in

line with the pace that Jesus sets that we find

the momentum and synergy of life with God side

by side that we live into this rest. And this

is rest not in the absence of work, but in the

midst of it, which is what we all really want

actually. Working for the weekend is not the

kind of life that we actually want. Nor do we

really want to be not working at all. You might

feel like you'd like 20 years off work, but you

actually don't. Both are miserable existences.

We don't want to work for rest and we don't want

to actually not work at all. What we want is

to be at rest while we work, while we live, to

have a peace in the work. And so here's the invitation

from Jesus at its simplest. It's give up your

own way, give up your own pace and come and follow

me. Side by side, day by day, let me set the

pace. Which practically means like letting Jesus

set your yes's in life and letting Jesus set

your no's. Instead of saying an immediate yes

and putting it in your calendar, if you don't

have a calendar, get a calendar. Come on guys,

get a calendar. Instead of saying yes immediately

or saying no immediately bring those things to

Jesus in prayer. Lord I want to do this or Lord

I really don't want to do this what should I

do? And you'll have a sense of peace about a

yes or a no. Let Jesus run your calendar seriously

let Jesus set the pace and this is the invitation

to a better life that Jesus invites all people

into. come to me swap your heavy rough yokes

for my yoke and you'll find rest for your souls

friends some of us here we're tired because we

have too many competing obligations and their

burdens and jesus is saying hey i've got i've

got something better for you but it requires

you to slip off the things that you're putting

on yourself can't you see that they're a kind

of slavery they're bad masters let me teach you

how to live I am gentle and humble. I'm a good

master. You can trust me. For some of us here,

we are tired because we're trying to pull ahead

of Jesus. We're running too far ahead with all

there is to do and Jesus saying, hey, slow down,

work with me here. You can't make me work any

faster by your busyness. And for some of us here,

we're tired because we're going too slow. Jesus

having to drag us along to the things he has

for us. He's saying, come on. Like, I'm with

you, side by side, day by day, you've got this.

You're not alone. It's time to be brave. It's

time to step out and step up to pick up the pace.

You know, I burnt out of that run because I didn't

submit to a pacing. I went too hard, too early.

I thought I could keep it up and I couldn't.

But I also wouldn't have been successful in my

run if I went too slow out of the box, out of

fear. There was a pace, a balance. that had I

kept it, I would have smashed my PB and other

people's as well. Friends, I feel like I preach

the same sermon every time I get up here in a

thousand different ways. You want the life that

God has promised you, I want the life that God

has promised me. The only way to that life is

through surrender to God. It's letting go, it's

trusting, it's giving over. It's trusting God

more and more with the deepest, most vulnerable

parts of our lives. It's letting God set the

obligations, the pace and trajectory of our lives.

The way to the life we all want, the way to the

life that is promised is surrender to Jesus.

It's letting Him lead. It really is that simple

and it's also that hard. You can't do it overnight,

but you can't also expect it to just happen.

You must put effort in, but you also must rely

on the Spirit to do it. This is the tension of

following Jesus. You can't make it happen, but

you can't do nothing and expect it to happen.

Our lives must be an ongoing journey of deeper

abandonment to Jesus, of deeper surrender, of

time after time, bowing the knee, handing over

the things we carry, our obligations, our dreams,

our desires, our passions and our burdens, giving

them over to Him and trusting Him with them.

that He will either let them die or He will restore

them and grant them. You see, we're tired because

we hold so tightly onto so much of our lives

and how we think they should pan out. We're tired

because we're constantly grasping for control.

Me too, me too. The true rest is found in coming

to Jesus and giving that control to Him. But

even if we do this, Even if we do all of this,

and we should, even if we surrender, even if

we let Jesus at the pace and trajectory of our

lives, that still won't make us right with God.

These are all good things for us to do, things

we should do, but we can't mistake these things

for things that we must do to be right with God.

Yes, we should put effort into our faith. We

should step into the invitation of life with

Jesus, but we can't mistake effort for earning.

We can't mistake receiving for achieving. You

see, in our lives, the true yoke that we carry,

the true obligation and burden we pull is to

sin. The true thing that is crushing us, that's

enslaving us, is our rebellion against God. Paul

says this in Romans, famously, I do not understand

what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do.

But what I hate, I do. That is the yoke of sin

around our necks. And yet the humble and gentle

one, the one who had equality with God, the one

who always did what he wanted to do and didn't

do what he didn't want to do, the one who saw

us drowning under the weight of our yoke to sin,

weary without hope, without the possibility of

life, did not abandon us to it. We're friends

out of sheer love and sheer grace for us. Jesus,

one with the Father, God in flesh and blood,

tied the yoke of sin around His own neck. and

stepped into our yoke with this unbearable burden

and took it to the cross to die with it so that

those that are in him could also die to sin and

be raised to life to be reconciled to God. See

the true yoke we were carrying was sin and because

of what Jesus has done for us, because he has

dealt with our yoke to sin, he can actually give

us his yoke, his way of being right with God

according to him, not to the Pharisees and his

yoke is faith. It's declaring Jesus as Lord and

believing in your heart the cross is raised from

the dead. It's trusting in the cross and that's

why Jesus can say my yoke is easy and my burden

is light because he has dealt with the ultimate

yoke and the ultimate burden of sin and death.

Your only obligation in life to be right with

God is faith. It's taking God at his word. It's

trusting Him. And His burden is light because

what you have to do to be right with God has

already been done. It's already been paid. What

you need to carry has already been carried. This

is the good news. This is the whole claim of

Christianity. God has done for you what you could

not do for yourself. And once you were a slave

to sin, you were yoked to sin, but now you are

free to be yoked to Christ through faith. Friends,

can you see how it is only faith in Jesus that

makes life easy and light to bear? You did nothing

to earn it. You have not worked for it. And yet

God gives it as a free gift of grace because

He loves you. What Jesus has done for you is

like inviting you to the greatest feast you have

ever seen. Choice meats, wine, all the cheeses.

and hot chips cooked in beef tallow. If you know,

you know. You have not earned the invitation.

You did not and could not pay for it. And God

knows you will never be able to pay it back.

But it was laid for you by the sheer love and

kindness of the dinner host. And all there is

to do, my friends, is to acknowledge the host,

sit down and tuck in. When you know in your heart

that ultimately your greatest burden and greatest

yoke has been dealt with, it actually doesn't

matter. It really doesn't matter what happens

in life. It doesn't matter what burdens you have

to carry or what burdens you need to let go of

because you're safe. You're home. You can be

at rest with Jesus. Life can be hard and with

Jesus, light and easy at the same time. That

is good news. Are you weary? Are you carrying

heavy burdens? Come to Jesus. He will give you

rest. Rest from sin. Rest that He won from you

on the cross. Rest from the burden and obligation

of other yokes. Through faith, take on His yoke.

Let Him come into your life, side by side, day

by day. Let Him teach you how to truly live.

Thanks so much for tuning into this week's message.

If you felt challenged or need prayer, we'd love

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or if you're interested in how you can support

this ministry please go to our website encounteradelaide

.com .au Thanks again for listening. God bless

you.