And His Own No.5 The Heart of the Gospel

Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. After Jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.

And when John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, Are you the one who wants to come or should we expect someone else? Jesus replied, go back and report to John what you hear and see. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.

As John's disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John. What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in king's palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

This is the one about whom it is written. I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you. I tell you the truth.

Among those born of women, there has not been anyone greater than John the Baptist, yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men laid hold of it for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.

He who has ears, let him hear. To what can I compare this generation? They're like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others. We played the flute for you and you did not dance.

We sang a dirge and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking and they say he has a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking and they say here is a glutton, a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

But wisdom is proved by right actions. Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed because he did not repent. Woe to you, Corazon.

Woe to you, Bethsaida. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.

And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. 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 was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my father.

No one knows the son except the father. No one knows the father except the son, those to whom the son chooses to reveal him. And then these wonderful words which are to be spoken on this morning.

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. Oh, well, let's have our Bibles open up those majestic versus the last three in Matthew chapter 11. They're so glorious that I think we all ought to read them out together.

So from the 28th verse of Matthew 11. 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. 1949 from the pulpit of Westminster Chapel, Martin Lloyd-Jones was preaching on these verses.

He had in his congregation a man who was to prove to be an equally great preacher and certainly an equally great theologian by the name of James Packer, who's now at Vancouver College in Canada. And Packer was very moved by what Lloyd-Jones had to say from this chapter in general and these verses in particular. And the leading comment of Dr. Lloyd-Jones when he came to these particular verses was to acknowledge just how virtually impossible it is for any preacher to do them justice.

He says, there is a sense in which I always feel that it is almost wrong to preach on this passage. One appreciates that no one should say or do anything to detract from the magnificence and the glory of the thought and of the whole conception. I've preached on this previously, but I have never come near satisfying myself hitherto in all my efforts and attempts.

And I am quite sure I shall feel precisely the same now. Well, there's not a preacher who would not run along with those particular sentiments. Here you have the gospel at its heart.

Here you have the heart of the gospel. Sometimes you pray as you consider to bring a message that there may be some in the congregation for whom the particular scripture and the emphasis will be relevant. But when you come to a passage like this, you have no doubt whatsoever that 100% of your congregation need the message.

It's relevant for all who come along. In these verses this compress the whole Christian doctrine. There is a sense in which if you could just say, just have the right intonation as you repeat these scriptures, nothing else really requires being said.

If only they had tape recorders in the day when our Lord was on earth so that we had not just the words that he spoke, but the expression that he used. There's nothing more gracious. There is nothing more wonderful, I say, to be found even in the pages of the four blessed gospels than these lovely sentiments.

This declared invitation that fell from the lips of our Lord. Listen again. And think that you're part of the multitude that was there on the first occasion that he broke the silence and uttered these particular sentiments.

Come, come to me. Oh, 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. You couldn't have it spelled out in a more comprehensive fashion, could you? Come to me all, me all. You see, he engages your attention immediately and he sets himself up as the focal point.

All, me, come. That's the gospel. Within his audience are the religious aristocracy from Jerusalem.

But he doesn't say, come to me, you who are religious. Within his audience there are those who are equally skeptical from the ordinary ranks of life. He doesn't say, come to me, all you who are professional.

Within the audience are those who were not disposed regularly to go to the synagogues. Who are not, quote, unquote, spiritual people. And he says, all of you, come to me.

The lost sheep. Those who are like the lost coin. Those who are depicted in the parable of the lost son.

All of you who feel lost. And for whom God has judgment. You, come to me.

All of you who are weary. Perhaps an even more descriptive word, and I think the original would sustain the English equivalent. All you who are exhausted.

Those of you who feel your load of sin. Those of you who are weary because of anxiety. Those of you who are absolutely saturated in remorse.

Whatever your past. Whatever your present. And whatever it seems in your nightmares your future might be.

You, come to me. All who are weary and burdened. Jesus knew about burdens.

He knew about religious burdens imposed on people by the religious elite from Jerusalem. Who made it their practice, Matthew 23 and verses 3 and 4, to tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders. But they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

Those of you who feel burdened by a religiosity that has got very little to do with the will of my Father. Those of you who are under the jackboot of Rome and feel that, well, politics offers no hope. Whatever the nature of your exhaustion.

Whatever creates a sense of being burdened. Come to me. He gives an invitation to everybody.

And what does he say will happen as a result? Well, we'll come back to it in a moment. But a passing comment. I will give you rest.

You can scale the heights or plumb the depths. You can travel around the world as many people have done. Trying to find rest and peace.

But you'll never find it. God has made us, and this is the glory of God in man. To be such creatures that we will never ultimately find the rest and the serenity that we require.

Until we find it in him. Who is this one who stands on this particular occasion with such words dropping from his lips? And issues the invitation. Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened.

And I will give you rest. Think it through, my friends. The problem with some of us is we've read scripture so often that we're no longer shocked.

At the implicit declaration that Jesus is making. What no one else could do for you. What the temple couldn't do for you.

What Judaism could not do for you. What Rome could not do for you. I can.

And yet this is a mere man from Nazareth. An untrained rabbi who has a charismatic personality and is drawing people to listen to him. The claim is quite stupendous.

The claim is shocking. It is amazing. He is saying, I can do for you what no one else can do.

There are many sweeping statements which our Lord seems to make when he says No man can come to the Father but by me. I am the bread of life. I am the water of life.

Well, I say, here is another of these astonishing declarations that our Lord makes. Remember the scenario. John's disciples have come to the Lord because, well, they have a problem.

John is in prison. There's a death penalty over him. And if Jesus is who he says he is, then why is John in the condition that he is in? Our Lord has had to deal with these disciples and send them back with words of scripture and affirmation.

You remember his regret that the places where he was brought up as a lad, they have not converted. Those signs and wonders have been done. Yet they have not responded to the truth of the Gospel.

And our Lord, having said that their judgment, verse 24, will be greater than that of Sodom. He goes on to pray to the Father, verse 25. Praising the Father.

And in verse 27, making this great claim. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father.

No one knows the Father except the Son. And those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come to me and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, meek and lowly in spirit. Do you get the contrast there? I will give you rest. Here he is asserting himself.

Here is exaltation, claiming to be what no one else is. And here is utter humility. I am meek and lowly of heart.

Here is the Son of God. I will give you rest. Here is the representative man.

I am meek and lowly of heart. You always get that contrast in our Lord. This is why you can never understand Him at the human level.

You think you've got Him in a box and psychologically you can analyze Him and then you discover there are traits in His character which are so utterly contradictory that there are no psychological terms in which you can explain Him whatsoever. You see, there is this admixture of the human and divine. He is God.

I will give you rest. He is human. I am meek and lowly of heart.

He can deliver the good, so to speak, because He is God and He can empathize with the conditions in which you find yourself because He is man. Why did He come? Did you hear my question? Why did He come? You tell me He came to be an example. The example of the good life.

I tell you something. If Jesus came to be an example and that was it alone, I wish He'd never have come. I'm intimidated by Abraham, the patriarch.

I'm intimidated by all the great characters of the Old Testament because, well, with the revelation that they had, they achieved, or many of them, a spirituality that I have never managed to climb to. But when I think of Him and the way that He lived, tell me that all He came to do was to be an example for me and I tell you I want to run away from this place and show you a clean pair of heels. This is not my man.

He scares me. But He hasn't come, has He? Just to be an example. I speak with reverence and I repeat what I say with a slight change in expression.

If He has only come to be an example, then He cannot help me. For I cannot attain to the Himalayan heights that He scaled. But He has come not just to be an example He has come to give.

To give something that I most desperately require. This is why I say these verses contain the heart of the Gospel. Come unto me, all you that labour and are heavy laden and I, I will what? I will set an agenda for you to attain? I will give you another ten commandments? I will tell you to do this and to do that? Lord, if this is the case, then He may help to me.

But He doesn't say that, does He? He doesn't say, I have come to present an agenda for negotiation. He says, I have come that I might give you rest. That's the amazing thing about this man.

He has come not to receive. He has come to present you and me with the possibilities of eternal life. Not as a result of our achievements but rather in response to all that He shall achieve.

Let not conscience make you linger nor of fitness fondly dream all the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him. This He gives you, this He gives you and it is the Spirit's rising beam. Joseph Heart in the 18th century, he understood come ye weary, heavy laden bruised and ruined by the fall if you tarry till you're better you will never come at all not the righteous, not the righteous sinners Jesus came to call come unto me all you who are exhausted come to me weary and I in the authority that is mine I will give you rest and I am no impersonal Saviour the very words that run on give us a unique, for I find it nowhere else in the Gospels insight into the psychology of the Lord I am gentle and humble in heart my dear friend the Christian Gospel must be true on the basis that that is such an absurd statement at the logical level whoever thinks of God in terms of humble and gentle did you ever hear those terms taken and applied to Allah go into the Hindu mausoleums or in that great subcontinent see the fiendish depictions of those gods gentle, humble not a bit but see our blessed Lord as he comes to Mary Magdalene in the early hours of the resurrection morning she thinks he is the gardener and he speaks out her name Mary and she knows it's the humble, gentle Jesus think of Peter on the seashore of Galilee back to the starting point where he met the Lord and the Saviour is going to talk about Peter's failure and denial and Peter will tell you as a result of the encounter where it all went in a different way how gentle and humble the Christ is the Apostle Paul refers to the meekness and the gentleness of Christ as he writes to the Corinthians oh I'm so glad that this is my Saviour the one who says I will and he takes to himself because it's rightfully his the authority that belongs only to God I will give, I can operate as God the God who operates is not some impersonal being he is like our Lord Jesus Christ there is humility there is gentleness in heart part of the psychology of our God and as a result of this the verse runs on and it tells us something about what our Lord means when he says I will give you rest focus in on the word yoke for a moment our Lord as you know is a carpenter now for 28 years he was in Nazareth at least most of the time the years of his majority well it would seem I dare to believe that tradition is here right the breadwinner of the family Joseph having died and our Lord was continuing the trade of Joseph tradition says that that carpenter's shop became famous throughout the whole of Palestine now Palestine is not a very big place only 100 or so miles from north to south reputation spread and it's basically an agricultural sort of society pastoral society farming community lots of oxen so what would a good carpenter do? he would make yokes and according to the tradition there was no yoke that was better fitted for an animal's neck than the yokes turned out by Jesus the carpenter from Nazareth see if you put a yoke that's ill carved onto the neck of the ox and you link it up with his partner then they'll pull against one another and the job that you want them to do will not be done properly because the animals will be in pain, uncomfortable and according to tradition no one made more comfortable yokes than the carpenter from Nazareth I like to believe the story is accurate certainly it is true to say in terms of what he is now spiritualizing what he is reading into the word yoke that he wants us to be comfortable take my yoke upon you you use the word not just in its agricultural farming setting but because it is so common in the vernacular of the time you use it also to describe other things here are wandering rabbis philosophers of which the ancient world knew many varieties and when you came to a particular man and you were attracted to what he had to say you submitted yourself to his teaching you came under his yoke and that is what Jesus is saying in this astonishing, amazing few sentences take my yoke upon you you see when you submit to my teaching for that's what he is implying he extends on the metaphor so that you can interpret him aright you will discover that what I have to say is so relevant to your life that as you submit it will be a case of leaving off letting go those burdensome responsibilities that cross anxiety which so often weighs you down and you will live in a dynamic spiritual relationship to me with my yoke an old Puritan says his yoke is no more a burden than the feathers are to a bird in flight isn't that lovely ah yes you say but we've heard you make reference to the fact that a Christian has a cross to bear and that is so but relative to the yoke of unbelief of a religion that's not linked to the teaching of the Lord Jesus relative to the bondage of sin relative to being an unbeliever the cross of the Christian is as the feathers on the wings of a bird within the grace of God the cross allows the Christian to fly this is why our blessed Lord from Nazareth says take my yoke for I know what you need I know the shape of your neck I know the contours of your body I know the delicacy of your personality take my yoke for it has been crafted just for you to sit comfortably on you and learn of me and know that I am not a tyrannical God that I am not weak and compassions abound within my soul my heart kindles within me in a flame of love for those who have sinned and failed and recognize their shortcomings and come to me not on the basis of what they can do but on the basis of what I can do for them the dove found nowhere to rest she went to and fro upon the waters of the earth and she came back to the ark where there was the only place of security and our Lord says to the timid doves of the twentieth century who fly here and there and get so worried that air-long circumstances to me.

The ark is open. Jesus, Noah, has his hand ready for the dove to fly on and to be taken into the security that there is within his love. Come to me, all you who are weary and have 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." Eric did well the other Sunday evening, didn't he, when he was preaching on keeping the Sabbath day. And had he had more time, he could have taken us into the epistle to the Hebrews and shown us that there is a sense in which the seventh day was a day of rest, and our blessed Lord in one sense fulfills the Sabbath. Men will never find rest until they find rest in our Lord Jesus.

That's why the writer to the Hebrews talks about entering into the rest, and he almost thinks of a year as being 365 days of Sabbaths, and in a sense he is right. The one who has responded to the invitation of our Lord discovers because of the easiness of his yoke and the lightness of the burden that he has entered into rest. You know there's no harder labor in the world than the effort to try to find God, and there is no more difficult assignment in life than to go through it without God.

And here is our Lord putting the option, the wonderful option, not only to the people of his day, but because these words are timeless, to the people of every generation. Here is the heart of the gospel. Come to me, all of you, Jew, Gentile, religious, irreligious.

Those who recognize their own failure, come to me, those who are utterly exhausted, and I will give you rest and take my yoke and find that it's tailor-made for you. Take it into your circumstances. Take it into the brokenness of your marriage.

Take it into the heartache of your family life. Take it into tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and for the years that are to be. And when you take, in effect, your relationship with me into today and all the tomorrows, you'll discover that amidst the turmoil and the heartache, there is a rest that he, the Son of Man, the Son of God, alone can and does give.

Let's sing about that rest. 362. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art.

I am finding out the greatness of thy loving heart. An old hymn and a good one. 362.

And as we take our leave, let's just remember some of our folk who are sick, especially the situation with Philip's family. Graham had an incredibly good day yesterday, which is two weeks after the medical profession had virtually given up hope for him. Let's continue to pray into his situation and that of his wife.

For those of you who are visitors, our friend has terminal cancer. I also ask to pray for Horace Saxe, that God will bless him as he's been stricken down with illness at this time. Father, we just come before you and we bless you for your Word.

We commit our loved ones who need you, especially for a touch in their body and even more for a touch in their souls. We commit ourselves to you. We thank you again for your grace.

We praise you that the invitation that we've been looking at is addressed to failures. Therefore, our hearts are glad because all of us here represent some area of contradiction, some bundle of inconsistency, and at times we hate ourselves because of what we see there that still needs to be refined by the gracious burnings of your Spirit. So we offer ourselves afresh to you and we pray, Lord, for your quickening.

We pray for your touch and we ask that you will send us out into this new week knowing the rest of God, having the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit remaining in our lives for Jesus' sake. Amen. Good morning.

God bless you.