Well, if you have your Bible, join me in Matthew chapter 11. We are coming close to ending this series entitled Steady. We started this at the beginning of August, and this series is really about building. your life on certain things that Christ has challenged us to build our life upon. And when you do so, it helps you remain steady when life around you becomes chaotic.
Uh don't you believe life around us can get pretty chaotic, can it? Uh, and you know, I don't know where you are here today, but I'll tell you, it can get chaotic. There can be things that spiral out of control, something could, you know, show up in your life that was unexpected, and all of a sudden your life goes and spirals out of control. And here's what this series is all about: building our life upon some what I would call building blocks of Christianity that you can build your life upon these things, and it will help you to remain steady when life gets chaotic. The real big idea of the entire series is simple.
I've been saying this about every week: the goal is not to build a life where nothing ever goes wrong. The goal is to become the kind of people, the kind of Christians who aren't easily shaken. when it does go wrong. And that's the idea for the series. And so we've been in this for several weeks.
We've been looking at different things like discipline and all sorts of specific things that Jesus commands us to build our life upon. And today we are going to talk about building our life upon the rest. that Jesus offers us. Uh the rest that Jesus offers Used. And today, what we're going to look at is rest is better.
Than exhaustion. And here's what I will tell you about life: It gets pretty exhausting, does it not? Like, we love being busy. Don't we? I feel like In our culture Busyness is almost like A badge of honor.
Is it not? Like, I don't know about you. But I feel guilty when I'm not doing something, right? When I just, I want to be busy. I want to be active.
I want to be like, you know, adding stuff to my plate. If there's ever an opening in my schedule, I'm like, man, I got to fill this with something, right? Because we love to be busy and we wear our busyness like a badge of honor, if you would. I mean, think about it. Anybody that you go around and ask them, maybe you've already done this today when we were shaking hands and fellowship and a little bit before church, you go up to somebody and be like, how's your family?
What's their answer? It's busy. It's busy, busy, busy time, right? Hey, how's work going? Man, it's a busy time, right?
And we're always busy. It's like, you know, how's life with your kids? Busy. How's life here? Busy.
How's life? It doesn't matter what season it is, right? It doesn't matter. I mean, it's like we live our lives like the person that you call, the organization that you call. Maybe it's Spectrum or something like that.
And when you call any place or a doctor's office, here's what they always tell you. Doesn't matter when you call, here's what they're going to say, whatever. We're experiencing high call volume, right? And I'm just like, is that really true? Because it doesn't matter when I call, there's high call volume.
It never matters. Like, I think they just tell us that, you know? But that's how we live our life. It's like we are on the high call volume way of living right now, and we are so busy in everything that we do. But here's what I want you to know.
Jesus in the New Testament. In Matthew 11. He offers us Rest.
Now I'm going to tell you, it's a little bit different than what you're thinking. Like, for us, we think rests like physically.
Okay. And that's some of it, and we'll talk a little bit about that. But it's a little bit deeper than that in what he's offering us.
So, like, it's a deeper rest, it's a soul rest that you can enjoy that will help you when life around you gets exhausting and busy. And so, a very short passage that we're going to look at today, but here in Matthew chapter number 11, we're going to look at verses 28, 29, and 30. Three simple verses where Jesus was teaching. And here's what he says: He says, Come unto me. All ye that labor.
and her heavy laden And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. And learn of me For I am meek and lowly in heart. And ye shall find rest. For your souls.
For my yoke is easy. And my burden. is light.
So let's talk about this familiar passage.
So I understand. You're looking at this. You're like, I know everything there is to know about this passage, Josh. I've heard it preached. And so I'm there, right?
And so I get it. I want to show you just a couple of things. Very simple outline. In fact, Jesus gave us this outline right here.
So I'm not adding to this. This is exactly what he said. But I want to first, before we get into these three things that Jesus is asking us to do. I want to look at who he's talking to. And he's talking specifically.
To those that labor? And those that are heavy. Layden.
So the word Labor Uh, can I just tell you something that popped into my head? This is random, all right? But I just want to say this. It's Labor Day weekend, and here we are. Like it just popped, that was not planned.
Man, Jesus knows what he's doing, right? And uh, but it just popped into my head. I was like, man, Josh, you're really playing this way. I had nothing to do with that. It just literally dawned on me.
But he's talking to those who labor and are heavy laden. And here's what I'll tell you: the word labor, if you look it up. In the Greek, in which the New Testament was written, here's what it literally means: it has the idea of being weary. And it has the idea of being exhausted. And it's a way deeper exhaustion than you just staying up really late last night because you wanted to watch the ball game, right?
It's deeper than that.
So, if you're in here today and you say, oh man, this message is for me because I stayed up really late, you know, binge-watching something on Netflix or watching, you know, the football game or whatever, I'll tell you, this is way different than that, okay? The rest that he's talking about are to those that labor. And what that Greek word literally means is those who are exhausted and have become weary from the burdens of life. The burdens that exist in our life.
So he's talking to those who labor, but also he's talking to those that are heavy. Laden, you say, What is that? If you look that word up in a Greek dictionary, it's going to have the idea of placing a burden upon. And so, in other words, who Jesus is talking to is those that are carrying these heavy, heavy burdens. They're like weights that are on top of these individuals.
And maybe that's where you are today. Maybe you've slipped in here today and you say, That's exactly where I'm at today, Pastor. I feel that I am laboring. I feel that I am heavy laden. I have the burdens that this world has thrown on me, and I'm trying to carry those, and I have them on my back, and they're starting to weigh me down, and that leads to exhaustion.
You say, What kind of burdens are we talking about? Here's a few that might kind of hit home with you. How about the the burden of guilt and shame? For some of you, that's what you're carrying today. You're carrying, like a bag on your shoulders, the guilt and the shame of life.
For some of you, you're carrying the burden of fear. or the burden of anxiety. How about the burden of grief? How about the burden of of loss? Or the burden of of family struggles.
Maybe with your spouse or maybe with your children. Or how about financial pressure? And what's happening, and you could add to that list, but those are some examples of burdens that we carry. And you're kind of like, you know, you're going, and there's tons of things on you, and Jesus is offering us a completely different way of living.
So, all of these burdens that really can pile up on you in this life, he's speaking directly to you, saying that if you're exhausted. With the burdens of life, if you're exhausted carrying those burdens and trying to do life with those burdens on your shoulders. I'm offering you a different way. It's like the book, The Pilgrim's Progress. You probably have heard of this if you've never read it.
Great book. And. And if you know anything about the book, Christian, he's going through the life and he's carrying these heavy burdens. It's a burden that he is carrying. And the book is all about giving the burden of sin over to the Lord to handle for you, because that's not a burden that you were created to bear.
And these burdens that we're talking about, we were not created or designed to be able to bear them. And so Jesus is offering us a completely different way. This is about if your soul. Is tired, Jesus is offering you a completely different way of living. You see, rest in what Jesus is talking about, it's a necessary building block.
for you to experience. Stability. When life is spiraling out of control. It's learning to rest the way that Jesus says that we as his followers can rest. And so he gives us three commands.
Three very simple commands about how we find rest. Number one: rest is found by coming to Jesus. The first thing he does, he says, if you are laboring with the burdens of life and you are heavy laden, those burdens are on top of you. He said, Come unto me. It's very simple.
Here's what I want you to understand about your burden that you're carrying here today. The heart behind the entire passage is found in those three words coming to me. The very heart of our God. is found in these three words. Come unto me.
He wants those who are burdened down with life, those who are burdened with hiding things, those that are burdened with sin, those who are burdened with things that you cannot fix, with problems that exist in your life that you cannot fix and you cannot make better. He's saying, hey, bring those to me.
Now when we think about rest We usually think about a destination, don't we? For some of you, you're thinking, like, man, life has been so hard if I can just make it to vacation. Right? If I can just make it to the mountains, everything will be better. If I can just make it to...
The beach. Everything will be better. And then you bring all that sand back into your room, and it makes life terrible for you. And okay, I'm not a big beach goer. But here's what I'll tell you: is like, you think if I can just make it there to a destination, my life's going to be better.
If I could just make it to my day off this week, you know, I'm going to rest and life's going to be better. But here's what I want you to know: is that when you come back from vacation, those burdens are usually there, aren't they? When you, you know, go back to work after your day off. Don't you wish that The burdens were gone, but they're not. They still exist.
And here's why: is because this, what Jesus is saying, for you to experience rest. This is an invitation. Not a vacation. I want you to understand that if you're exhausted because of the burdens of life, a week away is not going to fix that. Coming unto Jesus will.
Walking to him, giving these things to him. That's what will fix it. He doesn't say to Christians, he doesn't say, hey, get to the beach, get to the mountains, get away. He says, come to him. He says, get to Jesus.
And when you get to Jesus. When you get to him, you can actually experience rest. You can experience this new way of living. You see, rest is not about a destination, it's about a person. It's not about a place.
It's about a relationship. It's about a relationship with Jesus. And what Jesus is asking you to do is that guilt that you're carrying, that shame that you're carrying, that anxiety that you're carrying, that family struggle that you are carrying, and that's weighing you down. And you feel burdened, you feel weary, you feel like you're carrying this, and nobody understands what you're going through, and you're walking around with a weight, and it's getting heavier and heavier. Jesus is saying, Come to me, bring all of that.
To me. And then number two. Rest is found. By not only coming to Jesus, that's the first step, and that's the heartbeat behind the passage. But number two, it's found by taking his yoke upon you.
So what you see here first is the invitation that's to come to him. But now when he says, take my yoke upon you, you're seeing this invitation moving over to surrender.
Now Jesus, because a lot of what he talks about in the Gospels, he lived in an agricultural society, so he would regularly use stories and illustrations that would make so much sense to his audience. And when he says the word yoke. This was something that would really be so relatable to his audience. A yoke would be put upon, you know, an animal, maybe a horse or oxen or something, and it was like a heavy wooden beam that they would hook up something that carried weight. They would put that on the animal, and the yoke would be placed upon the animal so that they could move something that's heavy.
And here's what I'll tell you. If a farmer Had a young, inexperienced animal. They would attach the animal's yoke. To another more experienced animal, so that the younger wouldn't have to bear the burden alone. And so it's very normal for two animals to be carrying the yoke and the stronger animal to be carrying the majority of.
Of the weight, so that the weaker animal doesn't have to carry the entire load. He just has to stay attached. to the stronger one. And so, what's Jesus saying here? Jesus is saying, take my yoke.
Upon me. Here's what's true of all of us. We all have burdens in life.
Okay. So, your burden might seem smaller than somebody else's. It might seem bigger than somebody else's. But here's what I'll tell you: we all have burdens. But here's something that's also true of every person in this room.
We all attach our burdens to something. For some of you You're attaching your burdens to yourself. Right? You're carrying them? Uh and you're you're just kind of you know you You're the g the guy who's like.
You ever come home from the grocery store with a lot of groceries? How many of you are kind of like, I'm going to figure out a way to get in the house in one trip? Any of you like that?
So you're just like loading up your arms, you know, every bag you got, you're on there. And then you're. Your kids are like carrying like one bag. And so. That's what it feels like.
And so, for some of you, that's what you're doing. You're like, man, I got the burdens of my life.
So, I'm just putting them on and I'm carrying it. I'm strong. I can do this. I can do this on my own. And so, you just kind of like buckle up.
Here we go. For some of you, you just bury them. You act like. You act like they don't exist. And you just kind of put them off to the side and you ignore them and that kind of thing.
But for some of you, you attach yourself to somebody else. You know, you take your burdens, and what you do is you put them on somebody else. You ever been on the other side of that? Where somebody like lashes out at you because of the burdens that they're carrying. And what they're doing is they're crying out for help.
And instead of doing what Jesus wants them to do, they end up like throwing our burdens on other people and things around them to try to fix our problems. Listen, we're all yoked to something. And when Jesus says this, come unto me, that's the invitation. When he says, take my yoke upon you, that's surrender. What he's asking you and I to do is to bring our burdens to him.
And take our burdens to you. Whatever is wearing you out, whatever is stressing you out, whatever is weighing you down, bring those things to him. And there's like an exchange that is happening. Jesus is offering in exchange. You give me your burdens, and I will give you a relationship.
And a yoke That is easy. And that is light. How many of you want that? Right? Like, that's what we're looking for.
For some of you, you came in here and you feel like the guy that carried all the groceries in your house. And that's how life's feeling. You know, you're weighed down because of the burdens of life. What Jesus is offering is a complete exchange. Come to him, bring it all to him, and in exchange, he's going to give you a life.
That is light. A life that he desires for you to have. He's not telling you. Come on, work harder. He's actually saying, just like the two animals, he's saying, Hey, walk beside me.
I'm going to carry this burden for you, and I'm going to give you the light load of my grace to get through life. All you got to do is stay close to me. All you got to do is stay attached to me. All you got to do is stay connected to me. I'm going to bear the burdens of your life in exchange for this easy life.
That I'm going to give you.
Now, here's what I want to be very clear: this doesn't mean that there's not going to be more burdens that are going to come into your life. He's just going to give you everything that you need to make it through because you've chosen to give those over to him. It's giving him full control. It's surrendering control over to him and allowing him to carry the burdens for you.
So that you could enjoy. The light and easy life. that he has for you.
So he says that rest is found in coming to Jesus. You got to, and some of you might need to be there today. You need to run to him here today. For some of you, you need to surrender everything to him. That's take my yoke upon you.
And then the third thing, Is this Rest is found. By learning from Jesus.
So if coming unto me is an invitation. If take my yoke upon you is surrender. He says here in this passage, learn of me. What's that? It's discipleship.
You have an invitation. And to come to him. You have surrender. That's take my yoke upon you. What you have here by learning from Jesus, it's discipleship.
You see, Jesus is not just offering rest, he's teaching us an entirely new way of living. What Jesus is saying is that when you come to him and you attach yourself to him and you surrender everything, what happens at that moment is that he becomes your ultimate authority. He becomes the Lord of your life. He becomes your teacher, and you become the student. You surrender your agenda for his.
You surrender your life to his. And what you want to do is allow him to live through you.
So you're learning of him. You're learning how to live through him. You say, how do we do this? I think you learn of Jesus through his word. Right?
You can see who Jesus was through his word. You learn of Jesus through prayer. You learn of Jesus through obedience. You learn of Jesus through church community. You learn of Jesus by serving and giving.
Those are ways that we learn of Jesus. And what he says here is, he says that if you come unto me and take my yoke upon you, And learn of me. Don't forget that. You learn of him. We read his word.
We pray. We serve. We learn who Jesus is. And what that means is we allow him to be our teacher, our master, our Lord. And we follow him.
That's how you can experience rest. That's how we can all experience rest. I mean, think about Jesus' example right here about rest. The Sabbath From the very beginning, God created the world. Then what did he do?
He rested. Right. And then in the Old Testament, in the Jewish Mosaic law, he told them that every week. They're going to observe the Sabbath day. What an example.
That For the Israelites. Who they had to work in the fields to make as much money as they could. And if you do the math. And on paper, doesn't it make a whole lot of sense? If I work seven days, we make more money than if we work six days.
Right. I mean, that works for all of us. We get that. And so, what God told him in the Old Testament was this: hey, no, no, no, I want you to work six days, and I want you to trust me for that seventh day. And on that seventh day, I want you to not do any work that day.
I want you to cease from labor, and I want you to just trust me. I want you to worship me. I want you to spend time with me. And I want you to rest. And I and provi and I'm going to provide for everything.
For you. And then fast forward to the New Testament. Jesus comes onto the scene in the Gospels. And he practiced all of this. He set the perfect example of what rest really looks like.
And what it should be in your life. And not only that, not only did he practice like the Sabbath day and stuff like that, but he took it a step further. He constantly got away with the Lord, with his heavenly Father. You read throughout the Gospels of times when he would separate himself from the crowd and go into a moment of solitude with Christ, with God. And so, what I'm telling you is this: if you want to learn of Jesus, all you got to do is open your Bible.
All you have to do is study your Bible, and you can learn Jesus has been the perfect example for you and I to follow. And he's the perfect example. of rest. Learn. From him.
You see, when you Take the invitation, come unto me, and you come to him. That's coming to him, recognizing today that, man, I was not meant to carry these burdens. I was not created to bear the burdens of life. I mean, the financial struggles, the grief, like all these things, these things are heavy. I was not designed or created to bear those things alone.
And so Jesus is saying, that's right.
So come to me. Bring those burdens to me. Maybe some of you today, here's what you need to do. If that's where you are today and you're exhausted with the burdens of life, maybe you need to hit the altar today. And you need to come to him.
You need to bring your bags of burdens down and you need to release them and leave them here and allow him that is much stronger than you to bear those for you, to take those for you. And then for some of you, maybe it's not the invitation, maybe it's surrender. Take my yoke upon you. For some of you, you're holding something back. There's something in your life that you're not surrendering over to him.
You haven't picked up from him. And he's saying, Hey, take this upon you. It's the exchange of your heavy burdens for a light burden. A surrender. You'll find rest when you surrender.
We think rest is on the other side, but no, listen, when you give up everything and you give everything over to him and you completely surrender everything, that's when you'll find ultimate rest. And so it's an invitation. It's surrender. And then this last one: it's discipleship. It's learning of him.
It's taking the Bible and saying, hey, I want to live my life governed by this book. I don't want to try to fit that book to fit my life. I want to fit my life to fit that book. And it's taking that as your ultimate authority in life. That's learning of him.
It's taking him and how Jesus lived, and we are going to apply that and allow Jesus to live through us. That's how we experience rest.
So if you're exhausted, the outline's simple. Come to him, take his yoke upon you, and learn of him. And so, a couple of questions as we kind of land the plane here today. Here's what I want you to ask yourself. You don't have to answer these out loud.
But ask yourself this, what am I carrying? that Jesus never asked me to. What am I carrying? That Jesus never asked me to. What?
Worry? What burden? What expectation? What pressure? What responsibility?
Listen, we weren't meant to carry these burdens. Jesus wants you to bring them unto him. The second question is this. When are you intentionally disconnecting? disconnecting from You know, the things around you, disconnecting from the pressures of life.
Because what we learn of Jesus when we study Jesus' life is this: there's a time each day where you get away and spend time with him, right? That's what Jesus did. He always broke away, went to the wilderness, went into a moment of prayer where he would spend time with God his Father. When are you intentionally disconnecting? Is there a time where you just kind of take some time away and spend time with the Lord every single day?
That's what we will learn. And as we close, I wanted to illustrate this best we can here today. I believe that every person or every couple A lot of times In a marriage relationship, they have at least one person. that drives their car all the way until it's on empty. Right.
How many of you would say that is you or you were married to someone that way? And I'm married to somebody that way. And so you'll see a picture up on the screen. I think we have this picture.
So, like, every time I get in my wife's car. This is what I get to see.
So if we're late somewhere. It really affects us because I get in her car and it's always low fuel. I mean, it's like, do you ever put gas in your car? And a lot of times, you know, some of the newer cars. They'll tell you How many miles you have till empty?
Aren't you thankful for that? One of the greatest inventions ever. And so they'll tell you, you know, you have 38 miles till empty, and so you got 38 miles. And you become like a mathematician after that.
Okay, if I go home, that's this many miles, and I can make it here and there and stuff. And you start to figure it all out, everything. But here's what I want you to know: is this, is this like a warning light in your life? It's a warning light. And so when you see low fuel come, that's telling you: hey, you're getting close to empty.
You need to fill your tank up with gas, right? You need to fill your tank up with gas, and it will help you make it to your destination. Because here's what I will tell you: when the warning light comes on, if you disregard that, here's what's going to happen. You're going to find yourself frustrated on the side of the road, aren't you? Frustrated because you didn't heed the warning light.
And so, therefore, the result of not heeding the warning light is you're frustrated on the side of the road, you're irritated, life is falling apart, and that kind of thing.
So, let's think: what does this have to do with my spiritual life?
Okay. When you come to a passage like this, For some of you, here's what I will tell you. I want you to be honest with yourself. For some of you, you're living spiritually exhausted. You're living emotionally.
Weary. And you go from day to day carrying burdens and things. And when you come to a sermon like this and a passage like this, it's like a warning light going off in your heart today. For some of you, it's probably happening. It's like, you know, you're seeing this and you're reading this, and it's a warning light to your life.
And here's what I will tell you: when we look at building a steady life. Here's what I'll tell you. A steady life doesn't wait until empty. to refuel. Let me say that again.
A steady life. Does not wait on empty to refuel. Because here's what I'll tell you: if you wait until you're empty, Life's going to fall apart in your life. Things are going to spiral out of control and you're going to give into the chaos of life if you wait until you're completely empty to come to him. If you wait until you're completely empty to take his yoke upon you, if you wait until you're completely empty to learn of him.
You're going to find yourself giving into the chaos of life. And so, what I'm inviting you to do, and rather, what Jesus is inviting you to do is heed the warning sign. If you feel like you're spiritually exhausted and weary, and emotionally exhausted and weary, and physically exhausted and weary, and that's how you're living your life, heed the warning sign. Come to him, take his yoke upon you, learn of him, and you can experience the rest. that Jesus offers us.
