Please be seated. Open your Bibles to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 11. I'm going to read starting at verse 20 to the end of the chapter, not the entire chapter. Matthew chapter 11, verses 20 through the end of the chapter, verse 30. This is God's inerrant, infallible, inspired word. preserved and kept pure in all ages by his singular care and providence. Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works which had been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee. At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my father, and no man knoweth the son but the father. Neither knoweth any man the father save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful for your word. It teaches us what we are to believe concerning you and the duty that you require of us. Lord, thank you for Jesus's words. Comfort to those who desperately need comfort. And so, Lord, I pray that tonight we would hear your Son speaking to us by the power of your Spirit. Help us to be more like Christ as a result of this time together, and less like Adam. Amen. Jesus has his sharpest words as far as a people group towards the Pharisees, and he lays out a pretty strong case with regards to The city is in Matthew 11. Now, we need to consider why it is that Jesus says these things. Well, verse 20 tells us right off the bat, He upbraideth people. This is not a good thing if you've been upbraided. The King James language talks about reproach or rebuke. Not necessarily good when anybody delivers a rebuke our way. How much worse when The second person of the Trinity, the God-man, does it. And what does he do? He deals with cities that had Jesus' works done in them and yet did not repent, did not respond to them. Similarly, as Jesus speaks to the Pharisees, people that should have known God's word, who should have understood the time, discerned the time, so to speak, and understood who Jesus was, they didn't repent. So what we're dealing with here is the reality of the unrepentant heart, the wicked person that desperately needs the gospel. There's one cure for that which ails all of mankind, and it's the healing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Matthew is written primarily, many realize, to a Jewish audience. that would have needed to understand who Jesus was. It's one of the reasons we see the genealogy laid out plainly, laying out Jesus's family tree. We see other references elsewhere to fulfilled prophecy, and Jews would have needed to understand that clearly. And yet we've got Jesus walking among the Jew and the Gentile, laying out, not only with his teaching, but with his actions, who he actually is. And so Jesus kind of runs the gamut in upbraiding, if you will, I'll keep using that language, upbraiding the Jew and the Gentile for various flavors of the same bad dish. And that's unbelief. It's hard-heartedness. It's man in his natural state, as we've heard elsewhere. The American Presbyterian W.G.T. Shedd writes sermons to the natural man and he wrote sermons to the spiritual man. Because he, like the scriptures, recognized that there's two types of people, the natural man and the spiritual man. As we work through our text tonight, I want to pay particular attention to the famous three verses at the end of Matthew chapter 11, because they matter particularly in this case, as we consider who it is Christ is and what he offers those who would repent. He says, come unto me all that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Now, who could he mean? All that labor and are heavy laden. Well, we need to consider who those people are and with what might they be heavy laden. When we recognize that there are two types of people in the same way that there are two types of religion, true and false, natural and spiritual, The natural man receiveth not the things of God. He cannot even understand them because they're spiritual in nature. We recognize that it's all of us who labor and are heavy laden in our natural condition. Now, with what might we be heavy laden? The burden of justifying ourselves. The burden of deciding for ourselves how we might be right in the sight of God, and even worse, how God might accept our best works. And so what we do is we fashion a God that will accept the works that we create. And we say, well, my good outweighs my bad, or my God would never. We've heard that from time to time. Unfortunately, many of us have said that in our natural condition. My God would never, and then fill in the blank of whatever unpopular belief that's plainly taught in scripture that runs afoul of popular culture or man's natural proclivities to wickedness. So Jesus is saying in verse 28, come unto me all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Well, rest implies that someone is working. And that's so exactly when we rightly understand that everyone is working for something in our natural state. We're trying to labor in our own strength to be made right in our own eyes or right in the sight of a God that doesn't exist. Because God has shown us what is good, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with him. The scriptures principally teach that, our own confession of faith, our confessional documents. The scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and the duty that God requires of man. Now that duty is namely to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe that He is the Christ and that God raised Him from the dead. And we'll be saved. We'll be saved from what? Saved from the judgment that comes from trying to justify ourselves. The scriptures are replete with examples throughout all of history of people that sought to be right in their own eyes. The book of Judges alone shows the cycle that man in his natural state enters into and walks daily. There was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. That's natural man. Now he preserves his people. He preserves his remnant to be sure because that cycle is that God's people walk in covenant faithfulness. They stumble into sin. God gives them the consequences. They cry out for a redeemer. God raises up a judge to deliver his people. And then the cycle repeats ad nauseum. Well, that's the life of the Christian, but it's not the life of the non-Christian. The non-Christian is laboring in their own strength to do for themselves what God has already done in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 1 tells us that we all know that God exists. Paul says to the church in Rome that God makes it plain. Creation alone reveals that. And that everyone knows that. We're without excuse. But we hold that truth in unrighteousness. We hold it, suppress it. We hold it down in our wickedness. And we say it can't be that simple. It can't be as simple as to repent and believe the gospel. I've got to do something. And that's why false teaching is so popular, because it makes sense to our natural mind. So this is why Pelagius and Pelagianism were so popular, and it's so tantalizing, and it still, in fact, runs rampant in many circles. This idea, contra what Augustine would write, this idea that man is not dead in his trespasses, he's merely sick. And he's in a pit, and he reaches up And God reaches down, and they work together for man's salvation. Synergism, to work together. Augustine, on the other hand, writes, no, man is dead, laying at the bottom of a pit, unable to do anything. And God reaches down and pulls that man out and acts on his behalf, does all of the work. It's monergism in theological terms. But it can't be that simple to the natural man. Got to be something I can do. What can I do? Think about what happened when Peter preaches at Pentecost. People are cut to the quick, and they say, what? What must I do to be saved? See, even when we're cut to the quick, even when we're convicted of sin, we still don't fully grasp. And that's why it's so important to have the gospel preached clearly, taught clearly, and understood by every person who claims to be a blood-bought lamb of the Lord Jesus. Because what does Peter tell us? Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you'll be saved. Repent and be baptized. The promise is for you and your household. So everyone, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. That's all of us. We carry burdens. Some of those burdens are self-inflicted. Some of them are inflicted on us by other people. Maybe we were born into a difficult set of circumstances. We have no control over that. But even more than the situation into which we're born, from a theological standpoint, we are born into a far worse situation than we could possibly fathom, in that we were conceived in sin, born under God's judgment, and dead in our trespasses. So when Jesus beckons all to come to Him, In this case, the gospel is offered freely. Now, we're not going to get down into the theological weeds of the difference between the free offer and the well-meant offer, and we're not going to get wrapped around the axle there. But the bottom line is, Jesus is asking everyone to come. Now, in this case, if we're dead in our trespasses, who's going to even answer that? The bottom line is, if Jesus were to make that offer and then not do anything to stir the hearts of people who would hear, no one would come. Because the wages of sin is death, we are under a death sentence. And yet, here we are. We stand on the shoulders of generations of Christians who came before. The Bible is replete with examples of people who were converted, so something has to happen, and somebody has to initiate it. Going back to Augustine, going back to the scriptures even more so. Jonah 2.9, salvation is of the Lord. So as Jesus beckons people to come, those people will hear and come. But the fact of the matter is all of us are weary and heavy laden. We're tired of trying so hard. We're tired of having it all together. And in fact, these verses spoken into every culture are equally relevant, because the culture that is opposed to Christ is a culture that loves death. The writer of Proverbs is clear. Those who hate me love death. There's a way that seems right unto a man, but that way leads to death. The bottom line is, Two types of people, those who love life and those who love death. But the ones who love life have been made to love life by the power of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus is extending that offer to everyone. And he goes through and talks to the people of these cities and said, look, you saw what I did and you heard what I said. It's going to be worse for you. And that's often the case. Haven't we seen people who've heard the gospel plainly proclaimed, clearly proclaimed? They've sat under sound biblical teaching. And they didn't repent. They never took it to heart. They never approached Christ. They never laid their sins at the foot of the cross. And those people are almost always far more hardened than someone who's never heard the gospel of grace. Because those people think they have it all down pat. They understand the sales pitch. And the preacher might be slick, and he might know how to tickle the emotions of people, but he'll never get me, they say. Because they never truly approached Christ. They never heard Matthew 11, 28 and actually came to Christ. They may have understood academically that they were weary and heavy laden with the burdens of their sin, the burden of trying to have it all together, to never be able to admit that they were wrong about anything. They may recognize that academically, but they've never applied the biblical principles of a broken and contrite heart never being despised by God. And so they're oftentimes the worst enemies of the church. the worst enemies of God, because they have a thimble full of head knowledge and they don't apply it to their lives, and so it's going to be worse for them. And many of us, if we've talked to people, whether they're family or friends or in other circumstances, it's oftentimes the person that's never heard the gospel. That when you lay it out plainly for them, they're cut to the heart. You're telling me, You're telling me there's nothing I can do to be right with God on my own. But God didn't want me to perish, to die and go to hell, so he sent his Son to do the work for me. Are you telling me that's for real? A lot of times when you talk to people that have never heard the Gospel plainly proclaimed, that's what the response will be. You say, yeah, Jesus is telling everybody to come to Him. Everybody that's weary and heavy laden, are you weary and heavy laden? And people will, yeah. I mean, you don't even have to get an answer from them. They'll say it with their body language. And you'll see those shoulders slump and almost like they're relaxing. But now he tells us in the next verse why people should come to him. He makes the bridge by saying, and I'll give you rest. He says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I'm meek and lowly at heart and you shall find rest for your souls. There's that rest again. You know, the yoke, obviously, we have the idea of herd, not herd animals, but livestock and controlling and guiding a large draft animal, a horse or a bull or something like that. So the idea of a yoke being something laid over us, on the one hand, seems, it doesn't make any sense. But if we sit under Christ's teaching, we recognize that's exactly what the scriptures are. They're a yoke over us to guide us and control us and to govern our lives. But what Jesus is saying is, the yoke that you have in your mind, the yoke that controls so many people, that is a burden to so many, he says, nope. My yoke is different. For I'm meek and lowly in heart. I have power and authority. But I exercise it completely differently. The yoke that I have is different. Now, he lays it on the nose a little bit more in verse 30. But in 29, he's talking about the burden. He's alluding to the burden that's going to be lifted. This idea of rest for our souls. We live under the burden of a yoke one way or the other. I think of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, these chains that he fashioned, he carries with himself into the underworld. It's a very powerful illustration when you stop and think about what that is. That's the burden that we bear. Our burdens in our sin, if we are not in Christ, we are fashioning the chains that will drag us to hell. And we carry those chains like a yoke that controls everything that we do. But Jesus is saying, mine's different. Because the control, the oversight that I exercise over you is different. I have all the power that you could possibly imagine and more, but I exercise that power with restraint and mercy and grace. We see that elsewhere in Scripture. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. It's a gift. This idea of being under Christ's yoke doesn't come at a cost. It doesn't come with more burden. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Because like Jonathan Edwards says, there's nothing that we've done that we can bring to the cross or to bring to our salvation except the sin that made Christ's sacrifice necessary. We don't bring our best efforts and polish them up and shine them up and then present them before the Lord. And he looks down at these offerings that we have and says, you've got it together, kid. Come on in. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Prophet Isaiah has some pretty strong words for what our good works are in the sight of the Lord, and it's pretty nasty. So it's not, if we do and do and do and do, then God is obligated to receive us. That's a burden that would just drag us down. We would be crushed under it. In fact, Jesus has harsh words for the Pharisees who would make people twice the servant of hell because of that. They're condemned naturally because of their sin. The Pharisees heap these teachings on them and heap these burdens on them, heaping responsibilities on them that the human soul is unable to do, unable to withstand. But not so with Christ. It's one of the reasons that when we partake of the Lord's Supper, we call it the Lord's Table. It's exactly that. If it was man's table, we'd find a way to make it awful. And in fact, that's exactly what was going on in Corinth. But it's the Lord's table. And so the Lord's burden is by default, I mean it's an understatement of understatements, different than the burden that man places on himself and men place on other men. Humans botch everything we touch when we try to make things right in the sight of God. Unless we submit and take Christ's yoke upon us. We repent, we believe the gospel. As I said earlier, that heart of stone is removed. It can't beat and produce any sort of life. God puts that heart of flesh in. It beats, it pumps blood, and gives us life. The burden such as it is, the yoke that Christ puts on and expects us to take on, is to give up the idea that there's anything that we can do to make ourselves right in the sight of God and to stop trying. Just to stop trying. Stop trying so hard to make yourself righteous and know that in Christ you are inherently righteous because that righteousness has been imputed to you. You receive it by faith. It's a blessing for us. We should be shouting for joy all the time. That the yoke, that the burden such as it is that we bear in Christ is not that at all. It's a blessing. We can stop trying to be perfect. We don't have to have it all together. Now that doesn't mean we walk around with the bless this mess shirt on and, you know, all this cliche Pablum that the Lord I mean that the world spews out But what it does mean is when we gather as God's people when we speak often to another Somebody asks us. Hey, how you doing? I'm all right. It's been tough We don't have to plaster a smile on a plastic smile and say everything's fine Because it's not because we all recognize that it's not okay in our lives to But the burden to have it all together has been taken from us and been replaced with a much lighter yoke. Repent and believe the gospel. Trust that the work of Christ that's done for you and for me is far better than the work that we could do for ourselves. Just stop and take a breath and appreciate what God has done for us in Christ and all those Urges to have it all together all the urges to be a certain way All the urge to dress a certain way to have a certain job to go to a certain school because those things somehow Signify how right you are and how much you have it all put together that those things may be good things But if you're putting your trust in that to have it all together You're putting your trust in something that was never designed to bear that burden But the trust the simple teaching of Christ was designed to bear that burden Matthew closes with Christ's words in verse 30, "...for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." We have to do nothing but repent and believe. Now, as God sanctifies us, we labor by the Spirit to put sin to death. What I don't want to say, what the Scriptures don't teach, is that you come to Jesus and then you go back and live however you want. But you check the box of walking an aisle, or you check the box on praying a prayer, and then you can go about and do whatever you want in your own business. That's not the Christian life. Because in nearly every way imaginable, the gospel call is to come to Christ and die. Die to self. Die to sin. Live for righteousness, and live with an eye towards eternal life. Not live with an eye for having the right job. Not live with an eye to have the right spouse. To die to self. To recognize that God's ways are better than man's ways. That man's ways bring with them a crushing load. But God's ways bring with them freedom. The sweet freedom that, again, to go back to David, in Psalms 51 and 32, the sweet freedom of knowing that your sins are forgiven, that your iniquities have been paid, that you don't have to have it all together. David understood very starkly, in a very visceral way, that he had problems and God's crushing hand of discipline was upon him. But he said he'd confess his sins. And he sings that God forgave those sins. And now he wants to go tell others, and we have preserved for us Those two Psalms, 51 and 32, are great examples of the sweet freedom, of the assurance of our salvation, of the pardon that we have in Christ, of knowing that, yes, this life brings with it certain difficulties. But those difficulties are merely temporary. And if I don't get that job, it's OK. God has something better. Even if by my own standards, it doesn't make any sense. God has something better. Even if I get the job, it's not what I thought. It might even be a little worse by my own standards. But we're called to praise God in all things. For this is his will for us in Christ Jesus. And you combine that with Romans 8, 28, that God works all things for the good of those whom he loves and are called according to his purpose. And you don't have to have the plan for the rest of your life. You don't have to have all the boxes checked off, the I's dotted, the T's crossed. You don't have to put your hope in a checklist of if I do this, then this happens and this. You don't have to have all of the contingency plans laid out and put your identity in a certain degree on a wall or a certification. Your identity is in Christ. For a God-fearing, Christ-following person walking this earth, they walk with the light load of knowing that their sins have been forgiven. Well, you say, well, I'm struggling with this sin or that sin. It's okay. God ordained that. Lean into that struggle and know that the sin has been paid for on the cross. But there's something that God wants you to learn from this sin. It might be something as simple as, you know what, you need to read your Bible more, or you need to trust that I know exactly what I'm doing with your life because I know you best and I know what's best for you. Now, these last three verses that Jesus speaks, when he calls everyone to him that are weary and heavy laden, it's all of us. It's every single one of us, weary and heavy laden with trying to be perfect. He says, you're not going to be able to bear that load. But it's okay. I've got a load for you that's easier to carry. Take that load on. Just repent. Believe the gospel. Trust that I know what I'm doing because I am who I say I am. These other cities should have repented. It's going to be bad for them. But you who hear these words, come to me. I'm not going to let you down. And that, I think, is really at the core of why many of us, especially if we're adult converts, ran from God. Maybe we've been let down by other people. Maybe we've let ourselves down. And maybe we think it can't possibly be that simple that this guy Jesus that's in this book is someone that will never let anyone down because everyone else has let me down. Shoot, I've even let myself down. but a clear, simple reading of the gospel narratives. I don't want to say gospel stories, because these things happened. These are gospel narratives. A clear, simple reading lays out the case that Christ will not let anyone down. Oh, but I came to Christ and then I had problems. People don't want to talk to me. I had problems in my job. Jesus anticipated that. They said, you know, you're going to have troubles. They're going to hate you. Just remember, when they hate you, they hated me first. One of the other things that gets removed in time for many of us is this idea of what an easy life might be and whether it's important or not. In the gospel of Christ, as we are changed by that, our vision shifts. We start seeing things completely different, in completely different ways. What winds up being an easy life might not be so easy. And what could wind up being a difficult life is something that we can bear with a song in our heart. Because we recognize that in our natural state, our eyes were, well, we saw through a glass darkly. Scales were on our eyes to use Paul's language and Paul's account. But the gospel gives us clear vision. And so the things we think were easy are actually a whole lot worse for us than originally thought. And the path that we walk that looks difficult, that's full of thorns and broken glass and all these things, well, that's something we'll walk gladly. Because the gospel shifts our thinking, changes our identity. We were dead. Now we're alive in Christ. So our thinking has to change. But Jesus doesn't put a crushing load on us. He doesn't say, like the Pharisees do, OK, now that you're here, new convert, boom, here are all these extra laws. No. Jesus says to the new convert, trust in me. Live by faith. And what's more, he gives us the ability to do it. He doesn't say those things and say, all right, I'm done. You're on your own. Not by a long shot. That's not how God works with his people. He changes his people to new converts. And then he equips them with the ability to love his word, to obey his word, to walk in holiness, to repent when the need for repent is there, to trust in the finished work of Christ. It's a blessing. to take on the yoke of Jesus Christ. It removes all those chains. The yoke rests easy on our shoulders. It doesn't mean we won't have trials and struggles. But the bottom line is, our understanding of them will change from, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to me, to, this is rough, but it's a season of time. Because I know that the one who bought me by the power of His blood is the one who's going to keep me and the one with whom I will spend eternity. Our priorities shift completely. We stop having to have it all together. We stop having to be perfect. We stop having to have the perfect plan and we can rest with the sweet freedom of the easy yoke of the gospel of Jesus Christ that tells us to repent and believe and you shall be saved. Let's bow in prayer. Father, thank you for the privilege of having your word. But most importantly, thank you for the word made flesh. It came and dwelt among us. It came down from heaven for us and for our salvation. Thank you, Lord, that you didn't treat us as our sins deserve. You showed us mercy where we deserve judgment. Help us to live out of a sense of gratitude, not out of obligation. Help us to truly understand that the gospel is offered to us freely, that salvation is a free gift. There's nothing that we can do to earn it. And as such, there's nothing that we can do to lose it. Encourage us when we struggle. Remind us of your love when we need it. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen. Well, if you would, we are going to respond to the word preached. You'll stand. We will sing.