Finding Rest

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​The First Presbyterian Church of Blackwood
21 E. Church Street
Blackwood, NJ 08012
Sermon Notes (Sunday June 25, 2023)
Elder Russ Long
 
Finding Rest
Matthew 11:25-30
25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.  26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.  27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father.  Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.  28 Come to Me, all you 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 [a]gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Jesus said “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.”
I don’t know about you, but some days I am just plain weary.  I let the daily things in life weigh my spirit down.  The last two sermons I shared came from a personal struggle I was having, and I thought I would share that with you, as you might be struggling too.  The last was about sharing one another’s burdens.  This one is about finding rest.
Some thoughts borrowed from Rev Ken Sauer sermon Central:  Life and stress…they go hand-in-hand.  We will all experience this.  There is no getting around it.
Ultimately, the only way to find the rest we need is to turn to Jesus.
A yoke is a wooden instrument that yoked two oxen together and made them a team. You wouldn’t think a yoke is light, but Jesus is saying let’s share the load.
Jesus is saying:  “Be my teammate and together we will pull the load.  Together we will deal with the stresses of life.  Together we will carry your Cross.  Together we will lift your burdens and help lift the burdens of others.  Together we will be victorious over those things that seek to destroy you.  Together we will live the life you have been created to live.”  Being yoked with Jesus means that we are in a relationship with Him where we have the opportunity to learn from Him the art of gentleness, warmth, love and assurance.  Being yoked with Jesus means to walk with Him and do the things He does—to be humble, putting the cares and needs of others before our own.
And in this relationship with Christ we find life—eternal life and life abundant.  We experience true freedom because we no longer need to go it alone.  Because, when we are walking with Jesus Christ—we are too concerned about the feelings, the well-being and the salvation of our fellow human beings that we don’t have time to be all wrapped up in self.
“Come to me,” says Jesus.  “Come to me with anything that wears you down.  Come to me with any burden on your heart.  Come to me and I will give you rest.”
Not only is a yoke a wooden instrument that was used in farming.  The term was also often used to refer to the task of obedience to the Torah.  Earlier and later in Matthew, he calls out the legal yoke imposed by the Pharisees.  An impossible yoke to bear.  He says that they “tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other peoples’ shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” 
            The religion of Jesus’ day was based on rules and regulations.  It was a weight and a burden that was loaded onto peoples’ shoulders.  The Pharisees—the leading sect of Jesus’ time—had 600 rules and regulations having to do with just about every aspect of life.  They made people feel guilty and “not good enough” as no one was able to follow all the rules to a “T.”
Jesus came teaching the “heart of the Law” which is to love God and Neighbor.  He taught people not to judge one another.  He said that “God desires mercy, not sacrifice.”  And He told folks over and over again how much God loves us.  And then, to prove the full-extent of God’s love and to save us from our sins—Jesus went to die on the Cross—only to rise again, defeating sin and death and the Law that stood against us once and for all.
Many people think God is disappointed in them.  That is the kind of thing Jesus came to erase.  Some of us deal with feelings of “I’m not good enough for God to love me.”  And so, we try all the more to be some kind of “perfect person”—which is an impossible task.  And the more we try the more disillusioned and depressed we get until we finally give up.  And it’s easy to fall into this trap.   But that is not what God is like; that is not Who God is.  And Jesus came to show us Who God really is.
In the verse right before our Scripture lesson for this morning, Jesus says:  “All things have been delivered 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.”  When we look to Jesus, we see God.  And Jesus is compassionate, merciful, unconditionally loving, and forgiving.  He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”  Jesus died for us once and for all.  He died to forgive us.  He died to set us free from sin. He died so that we may live abundant, fruitful lives in Him.
He calls those of us who are carrying enormous burdens around.  He calls us during times of trial and trauma.  He calls us as we mourn.  He calls us from our self-destruction.  He calls us as we are stressed out and burned out.  And if we heed His call, we learn that the yoke Jesus gives us is not packed with the dead weight of sin.  Instead, it is the yoke of Christian freedom, the joy of serving Him, the joy of helping others, the opportunity to live a life of praise and thankfulness.  
We are not meant to go through this life struggling on our own.  So, let’s not try.  He is our God Who is right here every day and will never stop calling out in love:  “Come to me.”  Won’t you come to Him today, right now?
Jesus’s great invitation for us to come to Him, exchange yokes, and find rest is not intended for us to do in isolation.  He intends for us to come to him in community, to come together.  That’s one of the reasons the church exists.
We all bear burdens and become weary, but in different ways, for different reasons, and often at different times.  When we are weary, we are easily discouraged and can be given to cynical unbelief.  I have a term I call “praying, not believing”.   In those moments we are often not the best preachers for our souls.  We need others to speak truth to us and help us.   That’s why we are not to neglect “to meet together, as is the habit of some, but [to keep on] encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:29).  We are to “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).
So if you are weary, for whatever reason, however complex, Jesus invites you to come.  Come, take His light yoke of believing in Him.  And if it’s hard, don’t come alone.  Come to Jesus with and through a believing friend.  Believe, abide, and follow Jesus’ example.  And you will find rest for your soul.
As we look forward to the next phase of this congregation and what the future has in store for us, the load may seem overwhelming.  But as we look to Jesus to guide us, the yoke will be light and indeed rewarding.  And at just the right time, He will show us who He has prepared for us.
Amen.