Please turn with me in the Word of God to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11. The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11. We'll begin our reading at verse 20 and read through chapter 12 at verse 21. Matthew 11, beginning at verse 20. Let us hear. God's own 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, 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. At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath. He answered, Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the law that on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple desecrate the day, yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. They asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? He said to them, if any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand. So he stretched it out, and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, warning them not to tell who he was. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah, Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out. No one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break. And a smoldering wick he will not stuff out until he leads justice to victory. In his name, the nations will put their hope. So far the reading of God's word. Here at the end of Matthew chapter 11, we have one of the most familiar, one of the most precious, one of the most encouraging promises that we have anywhere in Scripture. where the loving heart of our Lord is revealed to us in his saying, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. It is a promise that we should have in our minds and in our hearts, a promise to which we should return again and again, A promise that needs to be at the heart of our Christian experience and at the foundation of our Christian life. It's one of those verses that I think sometimes a minister is a little hesitant to preach on because it's so wonderful you feel you can't really do it justice. And yet it would be wrong to avoid such verses just because of the frailty of the preachers. Because the strength of the verse itself is so marvelous, we mustn't neglect it. And so tonight I want to look with you at this statement of our Lord to look at it in context, the setting in which we find it in Matthew's Gospel, and even more particularly to look at it in light of the rather amazing statement of Jesus, that he wants them to come because he is gentle and lowly, or gentle and humble in heart. He says to those whom he addresses, he says to you and me, Come because of who I am. Come because I'm gentle. I'm not ferocious. I'm not cruel. I'm not mean. I'm gentle. And come because I'm lowly. I'm humble. The Greek word there is an interesting one. It doesn't really mean what we usually mean by humble. That is to say, a virtue of not thinking too highly of yourself. This Greek word that's only used here in the New Testament generally means someone who is of no importance. It can be translated servile. It makes me think of the words of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 53. He had no form or loveliness that we should desire him. He says, in effect, come to me because I'm not that important that I should be intimidating. I should not be off-putting. You can come into my presence just as you wouldn't be overly worried about coming into the presence of a servant. Come, because of who I am, Jesus says. I am gentle and lowly of heart. Now, to whom does he extend that invitation to come? To whom does he say, I am gentle and lowly of heart? Not to everybody. That's why I read a fairly lengthy passage to put this into context. He is not gentle and lowly of heart when he speaks to the cities, doesn't he? Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! Woe to you, Capernaum! I have done mighty acts amongst you, and you have not repented, and it will be worse for you in the day of judgment than it will be for Sodom. That's not very gentle, is it? It's not very lowly. To the unrepentant, Jesus is not gentle or lowly. He's not very gentle and lowly with these Pharisees, is he? These Pharisees that seem to spend their time looking for an occasion to accuse him and criticize him. These Pharisees who, when they are answered by him and cannot respond to him, go out to find a way to kill him. What does he say to them? He says, you are those who condemn the innocent. You are not upholders of God's law. And he speaks of his glory and power when he says, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. Here is one before you greater than the temple, greater than Solomon, greater than the Sabbath. You'd better listen to me. That's not gentle and lowly. That's pretty ferocious. So to whom does Jesus come? To whom does Jesus come and say, come to me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart? Well, our text tells us very clearly, doesn't it? He comes to those who are weary and heavily burdened. He doesn't really specify, interestingly enough, exactly what the burden is, exactly what the heaviness is. but he looks around at those crowds that followed him. And he says, in effect, if you're not as wise as those cities that will not repent, and you're not as arrogant as those Pharisees who contemn the innocent, if you're not self-sufficient, if you're tired, come to me. What kind of burdens does he say to come with? Well, as I say, he doesn't specify, so it means every burden. It's interesting in this context how frequently Jesus speaks about the sick and healing their burdens. Sickness is one of the clearest signs that we have in this world of the burden of sin and misery and corruption and mortality with which we live. And so when John the Baptist said to his disciples earlier in chapter 11 to ask if Jesus was the one, what does Jesus say? Go back and tell him what you've seen, How the blind see and the lame walk and the lepers are cleansed and the deaf can hear. You see, these people have been weary, hadn't they? Weary with their blindness. Weary with their leprosy. Weary with their lameness. But, of course, sickness is just a symbol or an example of the weariness that life can bring to us. Some people are just weary with living. Some people are weary of the afflictions and misery that they experience in this world. Some people are weary with disappointment. Some people are weary with duty. Some people are weary with sin. If you're one of those, Jesus says, I came for you. It's interesting that Matthew records for us how Jesus, not long after this wonderful invitation, quotes from Isaiah, who contains another of the most marvelous verses about who the Lord reaches out to. Chapter 12 at verse 20, citing Isaiah 42. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench. A bruised reed is frail and bent and useless. But the Lord doesn't despise, forget, or reject. A smoldering wick is a candle all burned out. Useless. But the Lord doesn't put it out. It's an image, you see, of weakness and need that the Lord embraces. That's what Jesus is saying when he speaks to the weary and the heavily burdened. Whatever the burden, whatever the source of the weariness, whatever the difficulty, it's the weary, you see, who recognize they're not self-sufficient. It's the weary who know they can't make it on their own. They can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. It's the blind who know they can't give themselves sight. It's the leper who knows he can't heal himself. And to the people who have been humbled by the reality and misery and burden of this life, Jesus says, come. Come. Come. And in this, Jesus is saying he understands who we are. He understands the struggles of our lives. He understands we don't struggle all the time. There are times we feel strong. We feel able. And too often we become forgetful. But Jesus comes, especially in this text, to those who are at the end of their rope. And he says, I understand. I understand the burden. I understand the weariness. Come. In parallel to this, you see, he's speaking to those who need rest. the weary need rest. The burdened need rest. And it's so interesting that this statement of Jesus is in the context of the Sabbath day. And of the way that the Pharisees had tried to teach the people to keep the Sabbath day. There are an endlessly long list of do's and don'ts on the Sabbath day. And what had been the effect of that? The Sabbath day was no longer a rest. It was another burden. It was another weariness. Maybe in the past, in our tradition, sometimes we fell into that trap. of turning the Sabbath into another burden that we had to bear, another weariness that we had to endure. And perhaps today in many churches across America we're seeing the fruit of that mistake in that many, many people are rejecting the idea of a Sabbath altogether. Saying every day is absolutely alike. We have absolute freedom. But that is to miss our need for rest. To miss the wisdom of our God who looked into our hearts at the moment of creation, before there was any sin, and said, you are a people who are going to need work, but you are also a people who are going to need rest. And he set one day aside at the beginning. A holy day dedicated to him to encourage us, to bless us, to relieve us. And Jesus comes to say to this people, my father gave you the Sabbath as a foretaste of the eternal rest that will be ours in the new heaven and the new earth. But he gave us that Sabbath also as an anticipation of the rest that I, as the Lord of the Sabbath, would bring into the hearts and lives of my people. So Jesus comes to those who need rest. And of course he's saying, isn't he, that we all need rest. we all need to have that wearisome burden lifted from our shoulders above all that burden of sin that burden of knowing that we have not pleased God as we should that we have lived too much for ourselves and too little for God and our neighbor and Jesus is saying I'll give you rest I'll give you rest you see jesus presents himself here as the great god who gives to his people here he's stressing his his grace his mercy his provision his abundant love and care for us his people. Out of that will flow expectations. He says, learn of me. Take my yoke upon you. Don't take the yoke of the Pharisees upon you, but take me upon yourself and you'll find I'm a light burden. I'm easy. In light of all the misery of this world, of all the self-inflicted injuries of this world. Jesus says, I've come to give. I've come to give myself for you. I've come to give my life that you might live. I've come to give my work that you might have rest. I've come to take your burden upon myself that you might have a burden lifted off you. I've come to give. I've come to provide. I've come to tell you what the Father really thinks. Pharisees didn't know what the Father really thought. The cities didn't know what the Father really thought. The Pharisees were so angry at Jesus they wanted to kill him so they wouldn't have to listen to what he claimed the Father really taught. And Jesus says, you see, in effect, it's okay because I came to lay down my life for the sheep. I came to lay down my life for my people. I came that they might have rest. And so Jesus comes gently and lowly to you and me as we are weary, to you and me as we need rest, to you and me as we hear his call. Come. Come to me. Don't come to new duties. Don't come to new responsibilities. don't come to new burdens. This is not to deny that there are not duties that we ought to take up, will take up as Christians. But he doesn't say come to these things. He says, come to me. Come to me, the eternal Son of the Father. Come to me who is filled with the spirit of might that I might deliver you from your burdens. Come to me who is the Lord of the Sabbath. And as the Lord who gave you the Sabbath, I can give you the rest that the Sabbath represents. Come to me. I am to be at the heart of your religion, at the heart of your faith, at the heart of your hope, at the heart of the rest that you will be given. And so he calls. And he welcomes. And we need to make that so clear as preachers and as Christians in this world. We need to make it so clear. It doesn't matter what burden you're carrying tonight. He will welcome you. It doesn't matter what sin, what anger, what frustration, what hopelessness, what doubt you're bearing. He says, come and I'll welcome you and I'll give you rest. And the great question is, you see, will you heed the call? Will you hear him? Will you believe him? Will you trust him? Pharisees said, he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's dangerous. People need the yoke of the law. That's what they need. He's going to destroy them. And the city said, well, he's welcome to come and heal people here, but we don't want to hear all this repentance stuff. We're glad for what he can give us, but we don't really want him. And in this world, Jesus gently, humbly says to you and me, come, come, come if you're weary, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Take my yoke, take me upon yourself and learn from me about me. For what I will call you to do is easy and light. And you'll find rest for your souls. Do you have rest in your soul tonight? Just come to Jesus. He'll welcome you, whatever you are, whoever you are, whatever you've been. And he will give you rest to your soul. May God grant that each one of us has that rest tonight. Amen. Let us pray. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we acknowledge before you that not one of us has a right to the rest that you offer so fully and so freely in our Savior, Jesus Christ. And how thankful we are for this invitation, this promise, this rich opening of the humble and loving heart of our Savior. who comes to his own in their need and promises to provide. Give to each one of us, O Lord, the gift of faith to come and the gift of assurance that in Jesus we have rest. And may the marvelous blessing that he has given to us enable us to give to others as well. Hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name, amen.