Rest

It is good for us to remember the key events of the Gospel of Jesus, our Savior: His birth in Bethlehem, His death on the Cross, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension to the right hand of the Father and His sending the Spirit on Pentecost. By celebrating these events we are reminded of what the Gospel is about, of what Jesus has come to do, of how God redeems His creation.

Today, we especially remember the resurrection of our Lord. Though dead and buried, He arose again on the third day. He arose, and we are saved. By His resurrection He proved victorious over death and over Satan. They tried to defeat Him, but they could not. And so, now it is clear that Jesus, as Lord, is able to do all that He said that He would do. Our sins are forgiven. The Father finds us fully acceptable and adopts us into His family. We have the hope of life eternal, now and forever. These things - and more - are what Jesus said that He would do, and He has done them.

What I would like to do this morning is to look at one particular blessing that Jesus said He would grant, one particular gift that He can give because He is raised from the dead. This is a gift that is not commonly remembered. And that means that it is a gift that is not commonly enjoyed, or at least not enjoyed to the extent that it can be. Today, I want to look at Jesus’ gift of rest. This is a gift that our restless age desperately needs.

Listen to Jesus’ offer.

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, 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. Matthew 11.28-30

As resurrected Lord, Jesus gives rest to those who are weary and heavy laden.  There are many who are in need of this rest. We’re going to look at this to see one way in which our Savior rescues us from the ravages of sin and death.

The first thing that I would like you to notice is Jesus’ audience. What I’ve just read to you might sound like an evangelistic appeal. And these words can certain serve as such. But that is not how they were originally spoken. Jesus did not come to be an evangelist. When it comes to His teaching ministry, it is much better to say that He came to be a prophet, a prophet to the people of God. In that respect, He is just like Isaiah or Jeremiah or another of the prophets that God sent to Israel. So, this appeal that I just read to you is not a call to be converted and to begin to enjoy the benefits of being a disciple. It’s an appeal to those who are the people of God to enjoy what actually is already theirs. It’s an appeal so that they can enjoy rest. So, it is good and right for you also to hear this appeal so that you can enjoy more of what is yours, so that you can enjoy more of the Gospel.

The next thing that I want to do is to be clear about the problem that Jesus is responding to. He calls to all who are weary and heavy laden. He is calling to those who are fatigued and more than just fatigued. These are heavy laden. They have been overloaded to the point of nearly being completely spent. They are wearied by the burdens they carry.

But what is the source of all of this? Why this burdened weariness? Discerning the source is simple. It’s life. The weariness comes from a life that has been twisted up by sin and death, a life that needs to continually fight against the downward pull of sin and death. So, it’s about disappointments, including some very large disappointments. It’s about the sorrows that life brings, sorrows that result in lingering grief. It’s about dealing with the regrets of past mistakes. It’s about the confusion that too often comes when someone tries to understand what in the world is going on. People are weary and burdened because of life in this fallen world.

Jesus is aware of this need. And that is why He calls. He calls to all who feel this weariness, all who recognize it for what it is. He calls out that they can find relief.

And what is it that He offers to all who come? He offers a way of living that is different. He offers rest. In this, He is offering salvation, but a slice of His salvation that isn’t usually understood and thus not usually enjoyed to the extent that it can be. He offers relief from the weariness of life.

How can Jesus meet this need? How can He give rest? What needs to happen? He has told us.

Take My yoke upon you…

Unfortunately, this saying has been misunderstood by some. They focus on the fact that a yoke pairs together two animals to pull a plow or the like. So, they assume that Jesus is offering to pair up with any who would come. They think that He is offering to help people pull the burdens of life. But that’s not what this is about. Jesus is using a phrase that would have been quite familiar to first century Jews. A yoke was a symbol of submission to a master and his teaching. So, it would be said that someone bore the yoke of a particular rabbi. Here, Jesus is the rabbi. And He is calling for the weary to bear His yoke, to submit to His teaching.

That fits with how this sentence continues.

Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me…

This is a call to listen to what Jesus has to say. It is His offer to teach any who come how to make their way through life without becoming wearied by it all.

I want to be very clear about Jesus’ offer. He’s not offering to hand people a book for them to study so that, based on what they read, they can figure out a way to gain respite from the weariness. No, He is not offering a book. He is offering Himself. Those who come will hear from Him. And being taught by Him, they will come to learn what it means to walk through life without being overwhelmed by it, without being wearied by it. They will be taught how to live well. Now, our book, the Bible, is important. It is incredibly important. In fact, it is necessary. But no one is saved from weariness - or anything else for that matter - by reading a book, even if it is the Bible. It is a person who saves, not a book. It is Jesus who saves.

Now we need to take a closer look at this rest. What is it like? And once again I appeal to that favorite passage of mine that I referred to last week.

Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.  Isaiah 40.30,31

What a picture of the blessings of Jesus. These who are weary and who come - these will have their strength restored. Think about it. At the heart of weariness is the sense that there just isn’t any more left to do what needs doing. You’re just exhausted. But the rest that Jesus offers includes the gift of renewed strength to keep on going. And it’s not just enough strength to get by. These who come will soar like the eagles. Even blessed in this way, there are times when even more than that is needed. There are times when you need a burst of energy. You need to run. You ‘will run and not get tired’. Jesus promises that there will be more than enough for that as well. Jesus promises that there will be no weariness. That is the aspect of salvation, the aspect of the Gospel, that Jesus promises through this passage in Isaiah. And it is glorious.

The imagery of Isaiah is stirring, but we need to make it concrete. So, what will all of this look like? I could point to quite a few things here, but I have limited myself to three qualities that are the results of Jesus’ blessing of rest.

The first is joy. There are times when we can use the word joy to mean something like super happiness. And that’s fine. But what I mean by joy here is something other than that. Joy is the assurance that Jesus is at work in every situation. So, whatever it may be that is happening, joy comes from the certainty that Jesus is using the situation to bring about good, good for Himself, good for His kingdom and good for the saint who is walking through that situation. There can be no joy where there is weariness. And that’s because weariness is the convincing evidence that life isn’t working, that Jesus isn’t working. But where there is rest there will be joy.

That results in a second quality, satisfaction, being satisfied with life. This is simply being able to say that your life is working, and it’s working well. It’s being able to say that and to know that you’re not just trying to hide from the ugly truth of the mess that your life actually is. No, your life really is working. Challenges are being faced and dealt with. Sin is being conquered. Character is being developed. Your life is working, and you enjoy a sense of satisfaction at that. Quite the contrast with weariness which is what results from a life that isn’t working, a life that is just about ready to give up. Satisfaction with life is another beautiful result of rest.

And that leads to contentment. There are parts of life that are hard. There is no getting around that. And then there are the parts that are really hard. But being content is being at peace with the circumstances of your life, whatever those circumstances may be - even the really hard parts. And you can understand that by taking another look at joy. The ability to be content comes from Jesus’ blessings of rest.

Joy, satisfaction, contentment. These are just some of the ways that it shows that someone has been blessed by Jesus with gift of rest.

Seeing these three makes abundantly clear an important aspect of what Jesus has been talking about. He is not talking about the weariness of the body. That’s significant, but it’s not what Jesus is responding to. No, He’s concerned about the weariness of the soul. And that is something that goes much deeper than any weariness of the body. Everyone feels it, but so very few identify it accurately. A great problem of our day is that the souls of so many are wearied by life which explains many of the foolish ways that people try to fix it. And that is true within the Church as well as outside of it.

But here is Jesus, and He has conquered. And so, He is able to give rest to those who are weary of soul, those for whom life is just too much. And those who come to Him find that He is as good as His word.

So, what must a person do to receive this gift? The answer is obvious. Come to Jesus. Come, take Him up on His offer and bear His yoke. Now, to some, taking on a yoke just might sound like exchanging one kind of weariness for another. But Jesus anticipates that.

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.

There were rabbis back then who placed a weighty yoke on their disciples, a burdensome yoke that just might crush. But Jesus isn’t like that. No, He is gentle. He is humble. And the yoke that He will place on someone is not something that crushes. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Submission to Jesus is not some onerous task. But submission is required.

It is helpful here to see that this is not the first time that rest has been offered to the people of God. Listen to something in Jeremiah that was spoken to a wayward people.

Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6.16

Here, instead of using the imagery of a yoke, there is the picture of walking on paths, the ancient paths. Jeremiah is writing about the old paths that God had laid out for His people, the way of life described in His Law. It’s the same idea as taking on the yoke of Jesus. It’s the same requirement of submission.

I wish I could say that the next thing that Jeremiah writes is about a rousing and grateful response by the people of God, a response of leaving their obstinate ways and returning to those old paths to obey God by walking in them. I wish that I could say that there was eager submission. But that’s not what happened. Listen to what Jeremiah wrote next.

But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

Listen to the response to this rebellion.

Hear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their plans, because they have not listened to My words, and as for My law, they have rejected it also.  Jeremiah 6.19

Jesus’ words about rest are a tender call of someone who is gentle and humble in heart. They are words that reflect a desire to rescue people from the struggles that they are facing, from the weariness of soul that afflicts so many. It’s important to see the heart of Jesus expressed in this way. But it is also important to see that the heart of Jesus can be expressed in other ways also. As we see in these words in Jeremiah, Jesus can also be the angry judge who moves to destroy those who are rebellious, those who reject His ways. I say this as a warning for when you are tempted to heed Satan’s lies and reject Jesus’ yoke. You really don’t want to do that.

Now, for the practical question. What are you to do with all of this? Here, I will do what I often do. I will remind you to pray. I’ll even tell you what to pray. This picks up from that last point. As far as you may be, right now, from any sort of refusal to submit to Jesus’ yoke, pray that you stay very far from it. Pray that you will continue to willingly bear the yoke. You will be surprised to learn how fast a faithful, submissive disciple can become a vigorous rebel who rejects Jesus’ yoke. Satan’s power is broken, but it is still great.

One way to be wise about this is to pray that you would enjoy more of this rest that Jesus offers. The taste of weariness is still in your mouth. You are not completely freed from it. And there are times when that becomes all too obvious. It only makes sense to pray for a greater experience of His rest to remove the last bits of the weariness of soul that still cling to you. This is simply asking to enjoy the Gospel more. But you should ask for this also as a protection against any rebellion, something that would only return you to a life of weariness. Enjoying more of the good can be a very powerful protection against returning to the bad.

There is so much that Jesus brings about because of His resurrection from the dead. Today, we looked at just one slice of it. But it is a slice that I want you all to enjoy more and more. So, please take these things to heart. Bear His yoke and enjoy more of the Gospel.