THE GENTLE AND LOWLY ONE
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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. AN INVITATION AND DECLARATION
I. AN INVITATION AND DECLARATION
A. Our text presents us with an invitation from Jesus.
B. He has just praised God for revealing who He is to the humble of heart instead of the wise of this age.
C. Matthew 11:25–26 (ESV) — 25 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.
25 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.
D. 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 (vs. 27).
E. These verses deal with the sovereignty of our God and His gracious action in revealing the Son to the weak of this world.
F. Now Jesus invites us to come.
G. The invitation is directed to those who are worn out and weighed down
H. Matthew 11:28–30 (ESV) — Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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. To labor is to become tired, to become weary. It is to be exhausted. It is to get tired through overuse, great strain or stress.
J. To be heavy laden is to be weighed down. To carry a burden.
K. For those hearing this invitation the labor and the load were put on them from the religious leaders of the day.
L. The Pharisee’s had loaded the people down with burdens they couldn’t bear when it came to drawing near the Lord. They had twisted the law of God and added to it to a degree that would crush the people.
M. What Jesus offers them and us is rest.
N. “I will give you rest.”
O. I believe the application of the truths in this verse go beyond the call to our deliverance from spiritual death.
P. There are many types of labors and heavy loads that can crush us.
Q. We are under the Lordship of Jesus and I believe He continues to call us to come to him.
R. We must learn that our coming, in one sense, is continual.
S. Consider some of the burdens we bear: We visit a couple we love and grieve when they speak most unkindly to each other. We worry about their marriage; we are burdened for our friends. We learn that a friend or mentor in a distant place has cancer. He may not live to the end of the year. We have a new job, helping a company improve its product. We thought we could help, and we certainly have the ability, but there are obstacles in the workplace that thwart every effort to turn things around. For some reason you cannot seem to get a good night’s sleep. You wake up every morning burdened by near exhaustion. Jesus bids us to come to him, that he may bear our burdens and give us rest. [1]
T. The result of our coming is rest, but there is more for us to understand.
II. WE ARE TO TAKE UP HIS YOKE
II. WE ARE TO TAKE UP HIS YOKE
A. Matthew 11:29–30 (ESV) — 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.”
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.”
B. The yoke illustration was taken from agriculture where the farmer would join animals together to harness their strength in plowing the fields or bear burdens.
C. The yoke illustration could also represent an oppressive weight in Scripture where the people of God had been in bondage to foreign powers who weighed them down.
D. But Jesus tells us in verse 29 the reason we should take His yoke upon us and learn from Him.
E. He self-identifies as gentle and lowly in heart.
F. In the one place in the Bible where the Son of God pulls back the veil and lets us peer way down into the core of who he is, we are not told that he is “austere and demanding in heart.” We are not told that he is “exalted and dignified in heart.” We are not even told that he is “joyful and generous in heart.” Letting Jesus set the terms, his surprising claim is that he is “gentle and lowly in heart.” Ortlund, Dane C.. Gentle and Lowly . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
G. He is not cruel or harsh, but rather, he is kind, mild, and considerate.
H. The lowly person is humble. He is humble enough to become a man and live in the midst of His creation. He came to serve and not to be served. He could bow down and wash the feet of His disciples with no sense of condescension.
I. This is the one with whom we choose to be yoked.
J. Again, He declares that in taking His yoke upon us we will find rest for our souls. He speaks of this as definite, not potential.
K. Here I will interject a thought that doesn’t come from this text, but tells us how to deal with all the truth of God in Scripture. It is a quote from J.D. Greear.
L. We “feel” like we are not close to God, but that feeling is not telling us the truth. God’s Word tells us what reality is, not our emotions. Emotions come out of our belief system; they should not be the basis for it. Our emotions, you see, do not have minds. They cannot think for themselves. We have to think for them, telling them what is real. Feelings should be reoriented around God’s reality, not our perception of reality around feelings. And the best presentation of reality is found in God’s Word. Therefore, we must believe our way into our feelings, not feel our way into our beliefs. Greear, J.D. Jesus, Continued…: Why the Spirit Inside You is Better than Jesus Beside You (p. 190). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
M. The stress of the times is revealing the underlying weak points in our spiritual lives.
N. We must choose to come to Him and take up His yoke because He is gentle and lowly.
O. “Once we rest in Christ, our work changes. The cure for a heavy burden is not to have no burden, but a light burden, the right burden. Jesus knows the right burden. He offers rest not by inviting us to do nothing, but by leading us to the right activities. Two things wear an active person down: having too much work of the wrong kind (tedious meetings, for example) and having no work at all. Jesus is gentle. He gives the right kind of work. That is how his yoke is good and his load is light.” [2]
[1] Doriani, D. M. (2008). Matthew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, pp. 478–479). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
[2] Doriani, D. M. (2008). Matthew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, p. 488). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.