Matthew 2024

So let's read this.

Matthew 11. There's 20 to 30. Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed because they did not repent. Woe to you, Corizen. Woe to you, Vasaida.

For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed entire and siding, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you It will be more bearable for tire and siding on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernium, will you be lifted to the heavens? No. You will go down to Hades.

For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for sodom on the day of judgment than for you. At that time, Jesus said, I praise you father, lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, father. For this is what you are pleased to do.

All things have been committed to me by my father. No 1 knows the son except the father, and no 1 knows the father except the son, and those to whom the son chooses to reveal him. 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. Thanks, Rory. Good evening, everybody, and, welcome to Cornerstone this evening. If we haven't met, my name is Tom and 1 of the pastors here. And as Rory said, this is a series that we've been working through in the evenings, making our way through Matthew's gospel, and, we're gonna be focusing really this evening just on that final verse or those final 2 verses of chapter 11 verses 28 and 29.

I know there's lots here, lots that we could spend our time on, but I hope you won't mind if we just spend our time on those last 2 verses they're magnificent, aren't they? Such a wonderful invitation. From the lord Jesus. So let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that we come to you this evening and hear in this verse you describe your own heart as gentle and humble.

How magnificent that the god who made this world when talking about his own heart describes it as gentle and humble. And we pray that you would help us as we look at this invitation this evening, not just to understand what it might mean for someone to come to Jesus, or what the words on the page actually mean, and just to talk in perhaps a proud intellectual way about this invitation. We pray that you'd guard us from that and help us to actually come to Jesus this evening ourselves and to know and experience this freedom from burdens that he promises. Help us by your spirit in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, the invitation in that last verse, I'm sure you'll agree. It's magnificent. It's a magnificent invitation. 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, wonderful words, wonderful, wonderful words. And yet here in London, even as a group of people who believe these words, which I trust most of us here tonight will, we often don't feel very rest it? Do we? According to 1 article, I was reading this week, which was entitled the Great Fatigue. Londoners are absolutely exhausted.

Several years after the pandemic, 46 percent of Londoners report that they are more tired now than they have ever been. 1 third of Londoners fears that they are heading for burnout very soon. Another survey by Kam, which, has designed and produced a sleep app found that 88 percent of Londoners consider themselves tired all the time. Perhaps not when they're asleep, of course, I would guess, but all of their waking hours, 88 percent of us would consider ourselves to be tired nearly all the time. People quoted that the high cost of living, intense work culture, constant hustle, long commutes, crowded transport, demands on diaries, all contributed to this feeling of near total exhaustion, the great fatigue.

And so at least in our part of the world, this rest of verse 28 sounds great. But for many of us, I think it feels always a little bit out of reach. And therefore, we need to ask, firstly, is what Jesus is saying real is he actually realistic what he's saying and what he's promising? And secondly, what is he actually promising? What does he mean by rest?

What is he talking about here? I watched a documentary film recently. About a man who spends his time going to very, very remote parts of the UK in order to try to record purely natural sound. So he's got these very high spec microphones. And he tries to find the most rural remote places in the UK where he will not be able to record the sound of, a digger, or a car, or an aeroplane, or any kind of noise at all generated by humans.

Just wants to see if there are places where he can record only natural sounds. And it turns out that there are not many of those places. It's harder than you might think, at least in our country or the United Kingdom, to find places that are free from the noise of humanity, escaping human noise turns out to be quite different, at least where we live. And I wonder if for lots of people, that's how they think about rest. Is taking time to get away from human interference.

Getting away from the noise of the city and other people and the demands that they put upon our time. Which in itself is fine, and that sort of rest can be can be quite good. But the offer in verse 28 must be more than that, mustn't it? Because if Jesus is only offering something like inactivity or peace and quiet or escapism from other people, then his invitation becomes a bit middle class, doesn't it? Because the truth is there are some people many people in the world who will never be able to escape the city, and they will always have to be working and be burdened and work 16, 17, 18 hour days for very little, and they'll never have the opportunity to disappear to the log cabin for a couple of weeks or go to the remote place and listen to natural things like that.

So so it it's gotta be more than that. Otherwise, there's a whole swathe of the Christian population to whom these words won't mean very much at all. And so clearly what Jesus is talking about must be deeper and more significant than just inactivity or peace and quiet, and I think you can see in the verse it clearly is. I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. This is a kind of inner peace which Jesus says will bring a completeness and a wholeness and a rest to the soul.

Now a little bit later, we'll think about the nature of that rest, but firstly, let's spend a bit more time unpacking why it's so needed. And so this is the first point this evening, the need for true rest, the need for true rest. 1 of the most famous books in church history is called the confessions of Saint Augustine. And, it was written towards the end of the fourth century, and, Augustin was a theologian, and he wrote this book the confessions, which is basically just his own personal testimony of faith and then a whole load of meditations on scripture. And in the first chapter of that book, he writes what became, 1 of the most famous lines in all of Christian literature outside the Bible, and it's here on the screen.

Hopefully, you'll be able to see it if I can click this along. You have made us for yourself, oh lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. And can you see there are broadly 2 parts to that sentence? There's a subjective experience. Our hearts are restless.

Something we feel. It's an experience we have. Our hearts are restless. And there's an objective truth you have made us for yourself. God made us for himself.

That's the objective truth subjective experience. Our hearts are restless. Now the first of those or the second of those, lots of people today would deny. And it would say, well, no, there is no god. God does not exist and I was not made for him, and I deny that he even exists at all.

But that first part, that subjective restlessness, as I've tried to show I think is much harder to deny. Our hearts are restless. And by that, augustine doesn't just mean that we're tired doesn't just mean physical tiredness. He's talking about a sense of alienation, a kind of restless wandering that we have in our hearts. 1 commentator who's written a a book on that book describes it this way.

He says, augustine is talking about our homelessness, our alienation, our misery, our confusion. Our lovers quarrel with the world. I think that's a great last description. Our lovers quarrel with the world. Don't we feel something like that?

That we found ourselves in this world and we know we've gotta have a relationship with this world, and we've been taught that we can expect happiness in our relationship with this world. And yet there's this nagging constant feeling that us and the world have got a bit of a lover's quarrel going on, that we don't quite see eye to eye, and we don't quite satisfy each other. And we don't really agree on a whole host of things. There's a sense in this relationship that we're in is is broken. An alienation, a homelessness, a misery, a confusion.

That I think is something of the weariness of verse 28, to be alienated, to be like 1 who is wandering through the desert looking for a home but to have never, never quite found it. There's a lovely line in 1 of the lord of the rings books where Gandalf is writing a letter, to Frodo. And in the letter, he writes a little a famous sort of poem the first 2 lines of it go like this. All that is gold does not glitter and not all who wonder are lost. And that phrase there, not all who wonder are lost.

Has been captured by lots of kind of travel outdoorsy companies, like the North Face and Saltrock, and they love that. They put it on their t shirts. I'm sure some of you have even got t shirts with not all who wonder our lots. And, it's a lovely phrase. I think it really in that context just refers to people who quite like traveling and seeing the world and enjoy and outdoorsy kind of live.

But actually, the Bible would have us understand that to be instantly wandering is to be lost. To have not found a home to be wandering is is to be lost. Have a look at these 2 verses from scripture. Quite interesting. Do you remember what the Lord said to Kain?

In Genesis 4, you will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and that's not positive in the context. Job 1, the lord said to Satan, incredible scene. This From where have you come, satan answered the lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it. Who is satan? He's homeless?

He's a wanderer. He hasn't found a home, and that is something of what it is to live under the curse away from god. We feel ourselves to be wandering and homeless and alienated, a confusion, a misery, a lover's quarrel. With the world. That's what Jesus has in mind in verse 28, weary.

Come to me all who are weary. But notice he also talks about those who are burdened. It's quite an interesting distinction, isn't it? So weary, we might say is this sense of alienation we feel burdened is the kind of thing that others might lay on us, weary perhaps more in my heart burdened by other people. And in the context, Jesus is talking here mainly about the religious leaders and the burdens that they put upon other people.

So later on, in Matthew's gospel, and we'll come to it eventually, in Matthew 23 verse 4, Jesus describes the religious leaders this way. They tie up heavy cumbersome loads, burdens, and they put them on other people's shoulders. But they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. You see what they do? The religious leaders, they take the law of god, God's good law, which when followed was meant to bring life and blessing it was the best way for his people to be.

They take that law, and they twist it, and they add to it, and they fill it with all of their own laws, and they turn what was meant to be a blessing into a burden. Don't walk there. Don't eat that today. Don't wash your hands in that way. You can't help that person, not today.

You'll never be right with God, and we're not gonna lift a finger in order to help you with the burden that we're laying on you. That's what they did with the word of god to god's people. It was burdensome. You could never really love god or serve god or enjoy god because under their leadership, there was always more to do, and everything you did was always wrong. And there was no assurance that you could enjoy.

And that was something of what we were seeing with those false prophets this morning in Azikyo. They tie up bird. They load people down with burdens. And there's no freedom to enjoy god. You know, still today, many people do live under that sort of religious burden, don't they?

They've got this burden on their backs and they're trying to please god. And the people that they go to here tell them that they need to be doing more or giving more or being different. And if only they would do it, god would love them, but they can't quite get it right. They can't please god. And so they're laid down with burden, religious burdens, never being able to enjoy god.

And so that's something of the the need. In 1 way or another, we're all like a a vase that has been broken and hasn't quite been put back together properly. We're weary as a lover's quarrel going on with world and we're burdened by this inability to get right with god no matter how hard we try. That's who Jesus is talking into. And so secondly, after looking at the need for true rest, let's look at the source.

Is the source of true rest. Here's the full quote, that I chopped from a little bit earlier. Restlessness is the second most precious thing in the world. Since it is the means to the only good that is even greater than itself, namely the rest that comes only in god. Our homelessness, our alienation, our misery, our confusion, our lovers quarrel with the world.

This is our greatest blessing. Next to god himself. And you think what? I mean, how how can that be a blessing? That feeling of alienation, that misery, that confusion.

How can we consider that not only a blessing, but our greatest blessing next to god himself. But really it's not so difficult to understand, is it? If you change the illustration a bit and imagine someone who's incredibly sick with a disease that they think is terminal or life limiting, and then they find a doctor who can cure that disease and bring them complete healing. Well, next to that healing, surely the greatest blessing was the feeling of sickness. Why?

Because it was that feeling that alerted you to your need for help. It was that feeling in that diagnosis which led you to the 1 who could heal you, your greatest blessing. Or you imagine you're in a car, and you're on your way for a restful break in a holiday home. And you're driving along and you come to a fork in the road, and you take a left when you really should have taken a right. And so you're driving left and after a while, you realize you've gone the wrong way, and you should have taken a right in order to get to your home.

And that feeling, that discovery that you've been going wrong, although very irritating in that context. Next to arriving is your greatest blessing because it's at that moment that you start to move in the right direction You've realized you were driving wrong. Blessing because now you can drive in the right direction. Or to use the language of Matthew's Gospel is the same thought in the beatitudes, isn't it? Blessed are the poor in spirit.

How can Jesus say that? How can it be blessed to have a poverty of spirit? Well, if you then bring that blessedness to that that poverty of spirit to Christ, then he will grant you entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and all the riches of the kingdom will be yours. And so next to coming into the kingdom, your greatest blessing was realizing you were impoverished. That was your greatest blessing next to coming home.

And that's something of what this commentator has got in mind. The restless experience is a bit like that because if you will pay close attention to it, you will hear Christ alerting you. And calling you to come home to himself. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. If you realize that about yourself, you're halfway there.

It's your it's the second greatest blessing it. Only better is coming to Jesus with that weariness and finding rest. Now as I said at the beginning for many people in this room, that will more or less be your testimony feeling at some point that you were burdened and restless and coming home to Christ for rest and praise god for that. But let's remember, and we're gonna see more of this next week, that for the religious leaders, verse 28, was not a nice poetic invitation. It was a horrendous thing for Jesus to have said.

You see, god providing rest for his people was not the controversial thing. That was that was bread and butter standard old testament. That god would provide sabbath rest for his people. Jeremiah 6 16, stand at the crossroads and look, ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls says the lord. That's what god promised his people.

But you notice Jesus doesn't say like Jeremiah, the lord will give you rest. Come to god's ways and he will you will find rest. He issues the invitation in his own name. Come to me, me, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

You see what he's saying? The ancient paths of Jeremiah and those old restful ways that he promised and those good ways we read of in the prophet. They terminate in me. I am that way. I am that rest.

And for the religious leaders of this day, And for many other religions still today, that is what turns a prophetic word into a blasphemous word. The lord Jesus Christ does more than just point to the god who gives rest. He claims to be that god who gives that rest. It's him. He is the source of this inner peace that we need.

And so thirdly, after looking at the need and the nature or need and the source, rather, let's look now at the nature of true rest. And it seems to have 2 parts to it. The rest that Jesus is offering here. Firstly, there is a relief from the burden of sin. Verse 28 come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

1 of the, 1 of my most favorite conversion stories in church history, is the conversion story of John Wesley. And, if you know about John Wesley, he was a preacher in the great awakening, he was prolific. I mean, the hours that that man spent traveling around and building up these holy clubs and preaching the gospel, the work rate was incredible. If ever there was a man who needed a bit of rest, it was, John Wesley, but he denied himself rest for the sake of, preaching the gospel. And, John Wesley, if you know his story, he was a man who labored intensely under the law for a long time, and he was trying to do god's work without really understanding the gospel of grace and his life became sort of full of activity, but couldn't escape this legal burden that he was carrying.

Until 1 night, May 20 fourth 17 38, he writes about his conversion in his journal. In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street. So if you're here tonight and you came unwillingly, great things can happen. Great things can happen if you come unwillingly. God is kind.

Where 1 was reading Luther's preface to the epistle to the Romans about a quarter before 9, while he was describing the change which god works in the heart through faith in Christ. I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine. And saved me from the law of sin and death. And then later on, he makes this observation.

After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations, but I cried out and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes, and he sent me help from his Holy Place. And herein, I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving.

Fighting with all my might under the law as well as under grace, but then I was sometimes if not often conquered. Now I was always conqueror. Through faith alone in Christ, faith and faith alone. He found the burden of his sin taken away, but also the burden of trying to live for god under law. And not grace.

That burden of having to do more and never quite doing nothing was lifted when he understood that faith and faith alone is what makes a man or woman right with god. And so what is the nature of this rest? It is a deep down knowledge that if you trust in Jesus, you are forgiven by god and right with god through Christ alone. You don't have to bring anything and you don't have to look elsewhere and you don't have to find yourself first and you don't have to fix yourself first. You must simply just come to the cross.

And see a gentle, lowly heart dying for you, and say, lord Jesus take this burden. Take this burden away and make me right with you through faith, and he will give you rest. The other aspect though, to this rest, I think is to do with a new way of life. Have a look down with me again at verse 29. 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. Now what on earth is a yoke Well, it has very little to do with eggs. Nothing at all to do with eggs, actually. It was essentially a wooden collar that ran across the shoulders of a pair of oxen so that they could jointly pull together a plow or a cart or something like that. Now what farmers would often do is that they would put a stronger, more experienced ox next to a younger weaker ox in order to train that ox.

So together, they would be going in the same direction, doing the same work, but 1 would be shouldering the heavier load so that the other would find it that little bit easier. So a modern more 20 first century parallel might be if you've ever helped a friend to move house or you've ever tried to move house yourself, and you've been carrying a chest of drawers or a sofa with someone. And some way through that job, you get the impression that the weight might not be evenly distributed. Have you ever had that? Well, you're carrying it down the stairs and you think I must have 95 percent of this at the moment, and the person at the top is carrying, it's that kind of idea, I think.

Both carrying the same load, both going in the same direction, but the weight distribution is really not all that equal. Yeah. The stronger ox, which shoulder the heavier lows. Now, the yoke of the pharisees, as we've already seen, was a terrible load. It was like a heavy chunk of wood that was full of splinters and was all rough and would cut into your neck and it was yours alone to carry.

Yeah. Because they wouldn't lift a finger to help. Remember what Jesus said? They wouldn't shoulder it with you. They would put it on you and watch as you failed to do it.

That's the sort of legal yoke that they put on people. But here is the lord Jesus Christ and remember as a carpenter, he probably made these things. He says my yoke is easy. It does not rub your neck and shoulders like that. It is an easy burden.

And it is a happy put. So come and get yourself yoked up to me, and I will bear the heavy load for you. And let's travel and be about this work together. I'm told that the Greek word for easy can also mean well fitting. It is something in other words that was made for you.

And friends who know the lord Jesus, don't we know that from experience, that the way of Jesus Christ to the human soul is well fitting. It is not like those secular and religious yolks, which just feel awkward on the soul and are difficult to bear. They're like a pair of shoes, which is either too small or too big. And it doesn't quite fit and it rubs and it chafes and it gives you blisters. And there's this sense in which these weren't made for me.

This doesn't fit me. But the yoke of Jesus Christ fits us well. We were made to wear it, and it enables us to travel along this world with joy. And so do you see in this verse Jesus is not calling us to a vague mindfulness or some sort of strange spiritual rest or an escape from other humans. He's calling us to wear a new yoke and to go in a new direction and to try on a different way of life, which is him.

At the end of the gospel, Jesus doesn't say, go into all the world and make believers of all nations. He says, go into all the world and make disciples. And what is a disciple? It is 1 who wears the yoke of Christ. Go into all the world and make yoke bearers of them.

Of all nations, get them under my yoke together, learning my ways and living in the blessing of those of those ways. And again, just to make an argument from experience, those of us here who know the lord Jesus Don't we know that to be true? That actually to live Christ's way. When by god's grace, we live Christ's way. We do find a a rest and a likeness and a joy and a sense in which following this man was what I was made to do.

It fits it fits the soul. The yoke fits the soul in a way that nothing else quite manages to. Now we saw in chapter 10 that all of this doesn't mean it's an easy life There's a heck of a lot of persecution involved in wearing this yoke, but the sense that it fits us well to be with Christ is something all of god's people know. And have experienced. And so you see what is the nature of this rest?

Well, it's trust in him alone for the forgiveness of sin and legal burdens, but it's also obedience to wear a new yoke and to move in a new direction, and in that to find rest for our souls. And so here it is. 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. Apparently, the only place in the 4 gospels where Jesus talks about his heart is here. And how does he describe it? Gentle and humble. The lord Jesus, our lord Jesus is a gentle, humble savior, who brings rest for our souls.

And his word to all of us tonight is not run away or go and hide or look elsewhere or escape into nature or try harder. It is come. To me, whatever your burdens, whatever your burdens come to me, and I will give you rest. We didn't spend much time on it, but the problem with the people in places like Capernum, is that they were privileged to have seen and heard so much. So many miracles had been done in that place.

A resurrection had been done in that place, and yet the people there would not accept this invitation to rest in Jesus. They would not repent of false rests and come and rest in him. And so Jesus said not only do they miss out in this life. But they will face something unbearable in the next. And so brothers and sisters take the opportunity tonight.

We are privileged to hear the lord Jesus speak to us through his word, come and re repent of false rests. Come and rest in me. Don't let the opportunity pass you by. Whatever your burdens, he will take them and he will give you rest. It's pretty good.

Just give you a minute in the quiet of your own hearts and you can take the opportunity to pray to the lord and to come to the lord and ask for this rest that he freely offers us all. Father so many in this world and, even we ourselves, know something of this homelessness, this misery, this confusion, this alienation, this lover's quarrel with the world. We have all felt that the things that we have tried in this life and the things that we've looked to haven't satisfied us. They haven't been made to fit with our hearts. And that is because we were not made to wear those yolks.

And so no wonder they don't fit us. And yet we're sorry that so often when when we feel weary and burdened again, we run back under those false yolks, and we try to put them on again, and and maybe I was wearing it wrong last time, and maybe it will work this time, or maybe this New York will help me. We we run away from you all the time and how foolish we are When Christ stands with open hands and says my children, I will give you rest. If you come to me, I will offload those burdens and I will take that weariness and I will put you under a yoke, which is a pleasure for you to wear. And so we're sorry that we just resist that so often and pray that you would help us to come to you lord Jesus, not only once but always that we would come back to you and say, this burden please to lord Jesus.

This weariness I need you to take to, lord Jesus, and to keep coming back to you because you are always willing to hear and to provide and so help us we pray in Jesus' name, amen.