I invite you to turn with me this evening to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11, we'll read together verses 20 through 30. First part of that chapter, we read about John the Baptist sending his disciples. John's in prison at that time. He sends his disciples to Jesus to say, Are you the one? Even John the Baptist did not quite fully understand yet the kind of Messiah we might say that Jesus was supposed to be. He says, are you the one? And in the portion that we read, Jesus speaks woes upon unrepentant cities and then He talks about rest for the weary. And in that portion especially, He reveals some powerful truths about Himself, possibly in answer to John and His disciples. But also I point your attention, we read this in connection with another portion of the fruit of the Spirit. Colossians chapter 3, verse 12, It says, Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Gentleness, which you will also find listed among the fruit of the Spirit, In Galatians chapter 5, Matthew chapter 11, beginning at verse 20, this is God's Word. Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles had been performed because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin! 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, and no one 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. It is those last verses that we take a particular look at with regard to gentleness tonight. Well, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, I do believe that there is one thing, one situation, maybe others too, no doubt, but for sure one situation that will transform the roughest, toughest person or strong man like a bodybuilder, or we might say a dangerous gang member, someone that has a very, very thick outward veneer, we might say. I believe there is one situation that will transform the toughest person into a gentle person, and that is a tiny, newborn baby child. Instantly, that tough person, upon taking that child up in their hands, instantly, their voice changes. It becomes softer. And this tough person might even speak with what we call baby talk. Instantly, this tough person, and upon taking that child up, has a tender heart toward that infant child. Instantly, that tough person begins to hold that child loosely and gently so as not to hurt that child. That tough person will treat that child as costly and valuable and fragile like an expensive crystal vase. That one will take great care of, walking carefully so as not to drop it and break it. Yet, when that tough person puts that newborn baby back down safely in the crib, of course, that tough one goes right on again being tough because certainly they do not want the image of being gentle. And when we think of gentleness, beloved, most likely we think of the opposite of being tough, of being hard, of being forceful. For example, too, if someone has sore shoulders and you give them a shoulder rub or a shoulder massage, they might say, oh, be gentle. That is not so hard, softly, lightly, because it's going to hurt otherwise. Indeed, it is, in many ways, the opposite of being hard and forceful and rough. Beloved, another aspect of the fruit of the Holy Spirit that is produced in the believer's life is indeed the virtue of gentleness. Gentleness, along with the entire fruit, is not natural for any one of us. Nor is gentleness just something that we do with our hands. But gentleness is a certain disposition, a certain attitude of heart, a grace of heart. We speak of it as a gentle spirit. It's often identified with meekness, which many think of as being weak or timid or even cowardly. but beloved, the truth is that because of man's sinful nature, because of that which comes natural to us, because of sin, to possess true meekness and true gentleness and true humility is not weakness, but it takes an inner strength that comes only from the Holy Spirit to be these things, to be patient, to be self-controlled, to be gentle. Because these things are completely opposite of our sinful nature. It takes inner strength by the Holy Spirit. Now, it may not be surprising to you that once again in the New Testament, there are a number of terms that can be translated as meekness or gentleness or other terms that associate with these concepts. Again, in Galatians chapter 5, in Colossians 3, as I've already mentioned as well, Matthew chapter 11 and other places, the word that is used can be translated as either gentle or meekness. There is indeed a similarity between the two, yet there is also a difference that we can consider. Meekness as we considered it quite a while ago in our consideration of the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said, Blessed are the meek. Meekness, we might say, describes how the believer responds properly when being mistreated by others. Not only responding patiently, waiting on God, meekness, first and foremost, is accepting God's way for us. But also with regard to others, meekness means responding humbly and gently, a gentle response, not retaliating, not seeking revenge. Meekness, we might say, is a response to the treatment from the receiving end. But gentleness, we might say, is the action from the giving end. Gentleness describes how the believer actively treats others. It's talking about that spirit, that attitude with which one treats others. Not mistreating them. If you think of the baby again. Sadly, sometimes we hear stories on the news about an infant child that is either severely injured or has died because of shaken baby syndrome. It has been mistreated. It has not been treated gently. Gentleness is not mistreatment. It is not harsh treatment. It's talking about how the believer actively treats others. For example, Peter in 1 Peter 3, verse 15 says, Always be prepared to give a reason to anyone who asks for the hope that is in you. And then Peter adds, But do this with gentleness and respect. Again, there's a response involved. But actively do this with gentleness and respect. In 2 Timothy 2, verse 25, Of the Lord's servant, Paul says, Those who oppose Him, those who oppose the Lord's servant, He must gently instruct. Gently. Gentleness describes how the spirit or disposition or attitude or personality of the believer handles the personality or disposition or feelings of another, how it handles their inner being, whether in words or with actions. Treating that inner being, that personality of the other as it truly is, treating it as valuable, as fragile. I dare say that the person in the world with the toughest, the thickest veneer, we might say, whether they would admit it or not, is also easily hurt by words. Gentleness treats them as valuable, that other's life is valuable and fragile, treating it not hard or harshly, but again, like that newborn baby with care and consideration, mildly with understanding. This is to describe the believer, beloved, not on again, off again, as we feel like it, but all the time, with all of those with whom God gives us contact. With all of them being clothed with the spirit of gentleness. First of all, because of its unfailing picture, its perfect picture. And that perfect picture of gentleness is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Gentleness is indeed a God-like virtue. Again, it's no surprise, is it? because if it wasn't, we wouldn't need to consider it. And there are numerous passages in God's Word instructing, commanding, calling for the child of God to be gentle, to practice gentleness in our actions, in our interaction with others. Gentleness properly belongs to that spiritual clothing by which the believer is recognized as being united with Jesus Christ. It is a God-like virtue, as we see through Isaiah's description of God, In Isaiah 40, that chapter you call is a beautiful chapter beginning with comfort. Comfort ye my people. And it ends with, He will raise you up on eagles' wings. It begins with comfort for God's people because our sin has been paid for. Because we have been forgiven. And then in verse 10, Isaiah says, See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power. In verses 12 and following, Isaiah speaks of the immensity and the greatness of God, even over the mountains and the heavens. And he talks about how small the nations are compared to God. In verse 22, Isaiah says that our God stretched out the heavens. And in verses 25 and 26, Isaiah says He is the Creator of the vast heavens and the stars. And he says, because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Now you might say, but I thought Isaiah 40 talked about the gentleness of God. All you've brought before us is the power and the mighty strength and the majesty and the immensity of God. Absolutely. But you see, tucked in there with those descriptions of God is verse 11 of chapter 40. He tends His flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads those that have young. Does that contradict His power, His immensity, His greatness? Absolutely not. That verse points to His tender care for His own. It's not harsh. It's not forceful. In Him we see clearly that gentleness is not a sign of weakness, beloved, but gentleness is a sign of strength, as is all of the fruit of the Spirit. It's a sign of strength in the Holy Spirit. It is a God-like virtue, and indeed, therefore, a Christ-like virtue. In Matthew 12, verse 20, Jesus applies these words to Himself. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out. A bruised reed and a smoldering wick there is talking about the hurting. It's talking about those who are spiritually weak, those who are of little faith. On the edge, we might say. And our Lord Jesus Christ does not treat them harshly. He does not treat them with a heavy hand as if to say, get your act together. He does not devalue them or break them or destroy them, but He treats them gently in order to help them, in order to draw them to Himself. And His gentleness is seen especially then in His call to repent and believe. That's what we have in verses 28-30 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. Now, beloved, we ought to understand that the weary and the burdened there is not talking primarily about those who are burdened and exhausted by the troubles and the difficulties of life. That may very well be included because of what he is talking about. But it's not talking primarily about that. With regard to the weary and the burdened here, we ought to understand that this has the idea of being exhausted. Some, maybe all of us here, have experienced this to some degree after a long, hard, really hard day of work, being exhausted, completely exhausted, not being able to lift a pinky, we might say, exhausted from hard work under a heavy load. But even more than that, what we are to understand is the idea here is that it is an ongoing weariness under that burden which one never gets out from under, for which there is absolutely no rest, it seems. And that is the truth of man under the burden of sin apart from God. Jesus is talking about those who are brought to see and understand their hopeless condition because of sin. Who have a sense of sin's burden weighing down upon them. Who have been brought to understand the wrath of God that is against them. Who understand their need for a Savior, apart from whom there is no hope. You see, beloved, the context again is of Jesus' woes to the unrepentant cities that were not burdened by sin. And then to those who are under that burden, and therefore they understand it, they have been brought to understand it, He says, come. And we know that that burden was very specific as well in Jesus' day. He says in chapter 23, Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, so you must obey them and do everything they tell you, but do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Now you may recall what a yoke is. A yoke, thinking of that wooden frame structure that was placed over a couple of oxen. Two oxen was called a yoke of oxen oftentimes. But that wooden frame that is put over the backs of the oxen to distribute evenly the weight of the load to make it easier to pull so that together they could pull much more than even one could pull. Or it might be a bar, for example, over the shoulders of a man or a woman carrying buckets of water to balance out those buckets yet making it able that they could carry more with that yoke than without it. The theologian Herman Ritterboss explains this. In Jewish literature, the word yoke often referred to the totality of obligations that a person had to shoulder in a certain area. And in Scripture too, we find it used that way, that a yoke is talking about some sort of obligation. But we know, beloved, that the Jewish leaders created an extremely heavy yoke, an extremely heavy burden of rules and regulations, the totality of obligations that was impossible for the people to bear. And they taught that only when one's obedience outbalanced was heavier, greater than one's disobedience, only then could one be saved. Yet, beloved, the result is that those who were under this burden recognized the impossibility of accomplishing it. They recognized that their sin was simply too great. It resulted in painful uncertainty. It resulted in fear that would cling to them, in an anxiety eating away or at a dark despair all into their inner being. And all of that, the uncertainty, the fear, the anxiety, the despair is the truth of knowing, that comes with the truth of knowing how great is our sin and misery. But to those whose hearts have been prepared by the Holy Spirit, those who have been brought to know their hopelessness in themselves, to them, the gentleness of Jesus Christ, beloved, is seen in our most desperate condition, that condition of the ugliness and the offensiveness of sin. It is seen in our most deserved situation. that we stand condemned before God. We deserve that fully and completely. And it's then that the gentleness of Jesus Christ is seen in those things as He says, Come. Come to Me. He does not harshly drive us away to go and do the impossible. But He says, Come. Because of what He has done. come it's a call to believe he says take my yoke upon you my yoke is easy my burden is light that yoke that burden which is easy and light is simple faith and trust in him who himself has carried all of our burden already for us that simple faith and trust in him that results in delightful obedience because we are already saved and he says I will give you rest And, beloved, how he says it there is this. He says, I, I alone, there is no other. I alone will give you rest. He gives rest to the inmost being. The late William Hendrickson is helpful in his commentary when he points out that the Syriac New Testament translates the word gentle as restful, and therefore, Jesus' words can be read this way. I will give you rest, for I am restful. I am restful. Beloved, think of it this way. In Scripture, as you think of those who came to Jesus in faith, those who came to Him in faith, how were they in His presence? They were at rest. They were at ease in His presence. And beloved, that is a beautiful picture of what another finds or ought to find in the presence of the gentle person, the gentle believer. In your presence and my presence as those who confess Christ, others ought to find ease. They ought to find welcome. They ought to find comfort and consideration and safety. They ought to find the absence of intimidation and threat. Boys and girls, that's what you find in the presence of a bully, don't you? Intimidation and threat, whether with words or with actions. But not so with the gentle person. Jesus Christ gives rest. Negatively, He gives the absence of uncertainty and fear and anxiety and despair. All of that is gone. And positively, He gives the presence of peace of mind and heart and the assurance of salvation. Notice again what He says just before verse 28. Verse 27 says, All things have been committed 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. He reveals the Father to His children. That's part of that rest in Jesus Christ. He deals tenderly with His people. He does not say, come, only then in order to put them down or to say, well, you don't deserve or you're not worthy or how could you? He does not say, come, in order then to make one feel guilty and terrible and inferior, which He could rightly do. but to those who have been convicted of their sin and misery by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, those who are under that heavy burden of the guilt and hopelessness because of sin, to them He says, Come. Come and find not only the objective truth of salvation, not only just to hear the words of God say, Not guilty, my child. You're saved. But along with that, To find a subjective sense. A subjective sense in your heart, in your inner being of comfort and ease and peace. Because all of our sins have been atoned for. You see, beloved, that's the glorious possession of believers to whom Jesus says, learn from Me. He is both the instructor and He is the instruction whom we are called to desire to be like, to imitate, clothe with the spirit of gentleness with its non-negotiable practice in the second place. Its non-negotiable practice. What I mean is this, those in Christ Jesus by faith, they have a transformed attitude of heart in their relationships with others. They will practice, just as we said last week with patience or with self-control or humility, they will practice gentleness to some degree. It will be present. It will be practiced in their treatment of others. Being considerate of others. In Philippians 4, verse 5, another word is used. It says, let your gentleness or considerateness be evident to all. Gentleness includes considerateness of others. Treating them better, as Paul says. treating them as more important than oneself, as he says in Philippians chapter 2. So that in your presence as a child of God, others will feel restful. They will feel at ease when they are with you. They will have a sense of relief in your presence. They will not be nervous, they will not be anxious, knowing that even if you don't agree with them on something, They will not be made to feel intimidated or worthless or like a second-class person or be made to feel threatened. They will not find you and I to be overbearing with our opinions. For example, it's my way or the highway and I don't care what anybody else thinks. They will not find you or I to be brash or harsh when they disagree with us and we respond to that or in our correction of them. But they will find, as Galatians 6.1 says, Brothers, if someone is caught in sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. They will find, they ought to find us to be constructive and helpful, not damaging. Protecting their dignity. In other words, not intentionally embarrassing them or making them to feel small or worthless or unworthy, but instead making them feel appreciated, cared for, protected, so that even when they are correct, They don't feel threatened. They don't feel as if they have to run and hide. Because that correction is done with care and kindness, not with intimidation or threat. They do not feel threatened because they trust you to deal with them in kindness for their good. Proverbs 12, verse 18 says, Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. And Proverbs 15.4 says then, The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life. Doesn't that sound beautiful? The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the Spirit. That's what gentleness does not do. It does not crush the Spirit. Even children, even boys and girls, when you face punishment by your parents. Boys and girls, you know that you will be more at ease if you know that your parents or your teacher, for example, if they do so with a gentle and a loving spirit than if they do it with an angry or a harsh spirit. If you know that they are going to discipline you with an angry or harsh spirit, you are going to want to run as far and fast as you can and hide and not be in their presence. But if you can trust that they are going to discipline with a gentle and a loving spirit, then that makes even the discipline easier to take and to endure. The child of God with a gentle spirit speaks with respect and sensitivity in such a way that that one considers the temperament and the feelings of others. Sadly, beloved, sometimes we crave the power that we are able to have over others by putting them down or making them feel guilty or making them to feel as if they owe us something. But the fruit of gentleness, beloved, rejects all that is self-serving and instead selflessly acts for the good of others, yet never compromising the truth. Gentleness does not mean compromising the truth of the Word of God. It does not mean letting others have their way no matter what. But gentleness is wonderfully characterized as speaking, upholding, defending the truth in and with love. And that non-negotiable practice of gentleness then is accomplished only through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, beloved, is the work of sanctification. that same grace by which we are justified, by which we are made right with God, that very same grace sanctifies us. God never leaves us, not one moment, without His grace. Indeed, gentleness is a God-like virtue, a Christ-like virtue, belonging only to those who are in Christ Jesus by faith apart from Him. One cannot and will not know the gentleness of God, but instead will only know the harshness and the reality of His anger and wrath forever. But for those who heed the call of Jesus to come, in Him there is rest. And for those who receive that blessing by faith, it's also that our desire along with thankfulness and humility and self-control and patience to desire to develop and therefore to ask for gentleness. To ask for it. and to ask that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes to see where we lack it. Beloved, gentleness does not seek to harm another with our hands or our words, but instead strives to uphold and care for the life, for the well-being, for the feelings, for the emotions of others. There are always temptations to put off gentleness, aren't there? There are always temptations to justify not being gentle. For example, the ingratitude, or the impatience, or the stubbornness, or the hatred, or the hurtfulness of others towards us, which might cause us to say, well, they just don't deserve it. So I'm not going to treat them that way. Yet, beloved, when we are tempted to suspend gentleness, May the Holy Spirit bring to our minds quickly the gentleness of Jesus Christ who has said to you and to me, come to me. He has said, come. In spite of our ingratitude, in spite of our impatience, in spite of our stubbornness and hatred and hurtfulness of and toward Him, all of which is forgiven fully in Him. And therefore, beloved, may the Holy Spirit nurture our gentle spirit may he increase our gentleness towards others and through our gentleness may it please God that others would see at least a glimpse of and be directed toward the open arms of Jesus Christ who says come to me and I, I alone will give you rest Amen let's pray together Dear Heavenly Father, we must confess as You have blessed us with a consideration thus far of the fruit of the Spirit and all those virtues that make up that fruit. We must confess, O Lord, that You have impressed upon us of just how short we fall, of just how far we have to go, of just how much we lack. These things. Oh, Father, there are glimpses only by your grace. And we pray that this fruit would be developed more and more. That it would grow more and more nourished and nurtured by your Holy Spirit. As we consider these things, may this be our desire. May this be our delight. May these be the qualities, the characteristics that others clearly find in us. And we pray, O Lord, that You would receive all the praise and the honor and the glory. Hear our prayer, O Lord, for Jesus' sake. In His name we pray. Amen.