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"Rest for Your Soul" Matt 11:5-30
By Clancy Nixon
Church of the Holy Spirit
Ashburn, Virginia
July 3, 2005
Overwork is becoming our National Pastime. Americans work more hours than
those from any other industrialized nation. On average, we work seven weeks more per
year than Germans do. Our bodies suffer from this overwork, our families suffer, and our
spiritual life suffers. Our bodies suffer: In 1850, before electric lights, the average
American slept 9 ½ hours per day. Today the average is 7 hours. Our families suffer: It
just takes time to be a mom or dad to your children. One man said, "I've found that the
only time my teenagers will communicate with me is when I'm with them." Our spiritual
life suffers: 85% of Christians admit that the only praying they do is "on the run."
(Swenson, Margin)
So: what do we do about it? Jesus Christ said this, so let's say it together:
"Come to me, all you who are exhausted 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."
Matthew 11:28-30 (Barclay)
The Jews of Jesus' day were tired of running on a religious treadmill. For them,
religion was a series of burdens, a minefield of rules that regulated every aspect of life.
The Pharisees, an influential group of pious Jews, taught that not only the Holy
Scriptures, but also the oral interpretation of the Torah by the Rabbis, was of divine
origin and must be obeyed. With each passing year, more and more proscriptions were
added by the oral law. The Pharisees could not lessen the burdens on the people without
overthrowing their whole system. To them and to us, Jesus says this: "Come away with
me, and watch how I do it. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Learn the unforced
rhythms of grace." (Msg) In other words, come to Christ and get a life!
While we all have different pressures, the remedy for our exhaustion is the same:
verse 28: Come to Christ. Jesus invites everyone especially the exhausted and
burdened - to come to Him. He tells us why in the verses just before come to him,
because he is God. In verse 27 he says, "All things have been committed to me by my
Father. No one knows the son except the Father..." Let's stop and take that in. Jesus is
claiming to be the Lord of the Universe, the center of all that God the Father has
revealed. Jesus says he is in charge of it all! Not only that, but no one understands Jesus
except God the Father. Scholars have debated how the human and divine natures of
Christ relate to each other for millennia, but Christ says that for us, it is a mystery. Only
God can fully know God. Then comes the kicker: Jesus says no one knows the Father
except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. That's referring to you
and me: Jesus has revealed the Father to us. Jesus says He alone can reveal the Father.
Don't miss Jesus' exclusive claim to be the only way to know God. It reminds us of John
14:3: "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me."
Jesus tells us that he is the only way to God, and we must come to terms with that. You
may not like the implications of that, but this is the very word of our Lord. Because Jesus
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is our Lord, at CHS we take his view on this issue and all others. I have no authority to
teach another gospel than the one Jesus taught. Neither do you.
Jesus says, "Come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you
rest." This first coming is an invitation to believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all. It
means pardon from sin, and the peace that endureth. It means acceptance into the family
of God, adoption as his son or daughter. It means resting in the loving arms of the Perfect
Father in heaven. I remember how I felt when I first believed as a fourteen year old boy
in Conneaut, Ohio. Everything changed for me, the world came alive in a new way. It
was exhilarating to know that the universe had meaning and purpose, that the best story
of all was true. My world had been rocked by my parents' divorce, but then I found that I
could trust the Maker of that world. I could trust that God loved me, that no matter how
dysfunctional my family became, there was an enduring family of love, his church.
When you come to Christ for the first time, you lose some burdens. You lose
guilt, because your sins are truly forgiven. You lose the fear of death, because you are
ready to meet your maker. You lose your loneliness, because you get a new family in the
church, and a new friend, the God who is always there.
Jesus speaks to those who have burdens. In Ashburn, one burden many people
carry is the fear of making a mistake. On the job many people fear losing their jobs if
they ever get something wrong. I've seen young mothers who have this fear even worse,
after all, the lives of their children are at stake. The good news is that when we come to
Jesus, he brings forgiveness as well as rest. Thanks be to God, we are not perfect, and we
don't expect others to be perfect. We are all in process, and that is O.K. Listen: Friends,
can we agree here today to treat each other with grace when we blow it? CHS is a
hospital for sinners, not a club for perfected saints! Amen?
When I practiced law, I used to represent Freddie Mac on billion dollar mortgage-
backed bond deals. I remember one lawyer from Brown & Wood who represented
Goldman Saks on one deal we did. Our clients' interests were different, but we worked
together to get the deal done. She had made a mistake in something she had drafted that
adversely affected her client, and I pointed it out to her. She was extremely grateful, and I
said, it's okay, we all make mistakes. You are forgiven. She was flabbergasted. She told
me that at her firm, she had to be right all the time. If her boss were to find out about that
mistake, she could be let go. For once, she experienced forgiveness and grace in a
perfectionist world. Please notice, we didn't sacrifice excellence here - we worked as a
team to make our documents work.
The command to come is accompanied by the promise of rest. When Jesus gives
a command, it is usually accompanied by a promise. For example: Go and make
disciples... and I will be with you always. Same thing here. 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." When you have already come to Christ, there is another, different kind
of rest available to you. Jesus welcomes the sinner, but he does not stop there he wants
to train the disciple. Notice that Jesus repeats the promise of rest. This is an altogether
different kind of rest than the rest at the initial coming to Christ.
He says we learn from him as we take his yoke upon us. What does that mean?
A yoke is a wooden harness that fit around the necks of two oxen, so that together, they
could pull a plow through the hard ground.
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Some people have never quite understood that Jesus claims your undivided
allegiance over your whole life. That's what it means to take his yoke. Christ wants to
be lord of even the smallest parts of your life, the parts you'd like to hide and keep to
yourself. So ignorance on this point can defeat God's rest in your life. You won't rest
when you have unconfessed sin gnawing at your conscience. You won't enter this deeper
rest until you fully consecrate yourself to Christ. C.S. Lewis wrote that Jesus in effect
tells us: "Give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money
and your work, I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it.
No half measures are any good. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, but to have it
out. Hand over your whole natural self - and I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I
will give you myself - my own will will become yours."
Other people hear this command to take his yoke and think it's impossible to do.
Listen to Jesus. He says his yoke is easy. The yoke itself gives you Rest. As your soul
yields to obey, the Lord gives you the strength and joy to do it. Jesus says he is gentle.
As you enter his yoke, you find this God is kind. It's not the yoke that is difficult - it's
resistance to the yoke that hurts your neck.
How does this work? Here are some practical suggestions for entering God's
kind of rest.
Suggestion 1: Set some limits. Learn to say, "No." There is a speed limit to life.
Max Lucado says America is the only country in the world that has a mountain named
Rushmore. Rest is found in relationship with Christ, not in accomplishing more and
more. It turns out that you can't be all things to all people, all the time, all by yourself.
"No" is a holy word. Use it often.
Suggestion 2: Don't answer the phone during dinnertime, during prayer time, or
during family time. Let it roll over to voice mail; that's what it's for. Cell phones have
an advantage: you can always be in touch with the office. Cell phones also have a
problem: you can always be in touch with the office. We used to call cell phones
"cordless phones." Not too long ago, I bought myself a birthday present. It's a
"phoneless cord." [Hold up] It works great! Turn off your phone from time to time.
Suggestion 3: Turn off the T.V. The American average of 20-30 hours a week is
far too high. If you do, you'll find new time for things that matter. What did we do with
our time before the T.V.? Is it possible that we lingered at the dinner table longer? Slept
full nights' sleep? Worked in our gardens? Visited with the Neighbors? Read good
books? Right now I'm reading Teknon with my son Sam. We read aloud to each other
before he sleeps. It's a novel and workbook from Family Life designed for fathers to lead
their sons through initiation to manhood. Sam is learning what it means to be a godly
man. You can't learn that from what's on T.V.
Suggestion 4: Have a real Sabbath day. The Fourth Commandment says,
"Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your
work... the seventh, you shall do no work." Contrary to what some think, Jesus did not
repeal this law. No need to be nitpicky about it. Just rest! All Satan has to do to
neutralize the church is to keep Christians overworked and overscheduled. Then our
witness will not be the sweet fragrance of the gospel of peace, but the stale sweat of a
religious treadmill.
Come to Christ. Come to Christ and get a life. Come to Christ and you will find
rest for your souls. Rest comes in knowing our eternal destiny is secure. Get an eternal
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life. Come to Christ as Lord, as boss, CEO of your life, and rest in Him. Some of you
may not know how to do that. It's simple. You do four things: Repent, Believe, Confess,
and Receive.
Repent: that means to change your mind. Change your mind about who has a
better plan for you to find real rest, the rest that lasts - you or God. Get real. Decide that
God knows better than you do, and make him the CEO of your life. Walk in his direction
by putting on his yoke.
Believe: you believe that Jesus Christ is God, that he died for your sins, was
raised from the dead, and lives today. Believe that he will give you the rest you long for.
Confess: Admit that you've made mistakes, that you have sinned, confess that
you are a sinner, in need of a savior, and you tell people about your belief in Jesus as
your Lord.
Receive: By faith, you receive the Holy Spirit into your life, to guide, guard and
bless you. Put on his yoke and trust that you'll find rest there.
Let's pray.
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