Father, we thank you that we are not awaiting our forgiveness, for it is finished, Lord. It is finished at the cross by the death of Christ in our behalf, and we praise you this morning, Father. May you be with us. May you take pleasure in the services we offer you today so that we might glorify you in heaven and edify the saints here in the earth who love you, Father. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And you may be seated. And we'll be in Matthew this morning, chapter 11, which we let off with several weeks ago. But we're back for the moment. And I'm gonna ask you to open to chapter 11, and I'm gonna read from verses 25 to 30 this morning. Very familiar verses, familiar not only to Christians, but this is one of those passages in scripture that have become really commonplace in the world, and people speak of the Lord inviting people to take my yoke upon you. And so we read this morning, chapter 11, beginning in verse 25, where Matthew writes, at that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight. All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and the One to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Father, we praise you for this invitation. We praise you for this promised comfort. And we praise you for the written and proclaimed word, which reveals it to us. Amen. And so we read, Matthew writes, at that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise. Why don't the wise know these things? Because the Lord has hidden them. Why do you know them? Because you're not the wise. You know, I found that interesting. The disciples, if you look at this in context, it does seem as though the disciples are sitting by, and Jesus is praying, and he said, you've delivered them unto babes. And I can picture Peter going, now we're babes? We're babies in Christ? Yes, we're babes in Christ. He looks at us that way. In the first letter of John, he says that he calls us what? What does John call us? The aged John calls us little children. Little children, put away idols from among you. I think that's his very last sentiment to us in 1 John. But this is a wonderful passage. People know this passage. It gives us comfort. There's a comfort in just knowing that the Lord has promised us comfort. It's like an immediate thing, isn't it? So it's a memorable passage. It begins with doctrine, you know, all that stuff about, oh, no one knows the son except the father, no one knows the father except the son, but we have the mind of Christ, so we're kind of in on this little fraternity between father and son, right? So it's a wonderful, memorable passage. It begins with doctrine and declaration of God's will, and it ends with this comforting invitation and this promise of rest. And it's not the rest of inactivity. You know, God never intended inactivity for us. Neither did He intend toil. If you recall, just before the fall, Adam and Eve's for what? Tending in the... Toiling in the garden? No, they were tending the garden. Tending is labor without strife. But because of the sin that they committed We are all striving now. We all, in some sense, get to the place where it's very easy to despise our labor, because we have to earn it by the sweat of our brow, right? And the strength of our bodies. So there's this promise of rest, but not the rest of inactivity, and I'll get to that. It's a rest of satisfaction in the blessing of good toil, good work, where we tend the garden, which is the earth that God has given us to develop. And so it portends an eternal Sabbath rest. This isn't just a rest, this isn't just a time out, let's take a nap kind of rest. This is a sabbat, a Sabbath rest. But it doesn't begin in eternity, it extends there, but it begins in the here and now. Jesus wants us to begin to experience this eternal rest in the here and now. That's difficult, and I know it is because it's difficult for me. It's the gift of God to those who love him. Enter into my rest. In times of trouble, when you're counting it all joy in various trials, you might get on your knees and recall that Jesus said, enter into my rest. Let's enter into it now. So there are a few things here worth noting, a number of things, but we'll take at least three of them first. It's clearly stated that there are things hidden and there are things revealed. It'll always be that way. There are mysteries. We don't know everything, right? Paul the Apostle talked about it in 1 Corinthians saying it's sort of a form of insanity to try to understand things about God that he didn't reveal yet. And Calvin speaks of it just that way. So there are things hidden and there are things revealed, and don't be embarrassed if somebody you're witnessing to someday asks you a question you can't answer, just say, you know, there are mysterious things in the Lord. And so there are things hidden, there are things revealed, but here's the place Jesus takes us. The things that are hidden are hidden by God. And the things that are revealed are revealed by God. God is sovereign in the entire process of our sanctification. And what's revealed is revealed by God. Verse 26 tells us that God likes it that way. In verse 26, it says, even so father, for so it seemed good in your sight to hide these things from them and to reveal these things to them. So he's sovereign in all things, and we can rejoice in God's sovereignty. Secondly, there's a distinct teaching of the relationship of the Son of God to God the Father here. It is intimate, friends. It is beautiful. And it is unique. It's the first essential truth of the New Testament, that Jesus is intimate with God in a way that no other person is. Jesus was killed for calling himself the son of man. Everyone, everyone knew what that meant. It came from Daniel and Ezekiel and referred to a more than a prophet status. He was killed for on certain occasions, actually calling himself the son of God. So that's an intimate relationship there. He didn't broadcast it to everyone, but on certain occasions he did put it out there. And so it's the first essential truth of the New Testament that Jesus has this intimacy with the Father, and yet there's an invitation to share in that intimacy. It's unique, but he's asking us to share in it. A third point is there is an illusion here to rest, a divine rest, an eternal rest. But it's not a rest that is far off in eternity somewhere. It is a rest that begins in the here and now. God is a, dare we say, a co-worker with us in this. You know, there's an old saying, you might have heard it, God is my co-pilot. Have you ever heard that? You know I hate that because it's a cliche and it just doesn't say what it's trying to say. So I always said when someone said God is my co-pilot, what did I say? switch seats. I hesitate to call him a co-worker, but we are working in unison with Christ for our own sanctification in this life, for our own eventual glorification. So we can get touchy here on some of the particulars. And so it's a rest that begins in the here and now, so we who have faith in the person and work of Christ may grow to enjoy our toil and trial even now, because he's working through it with us. He is fellowshipping in each difficult stage of our lives, and friends, life is difficult, and that's why I say when the good times are here, appreciate them, celebrate them, and thank God for them. The New Testament tells us to do that in the difficult times as well. So note here, a textual point I want to make at the beginning. Instead of, at that time Jesus answered, which the New King James renders it, at that time Jesus answered, you might notice he wasn't asked a question. So what was the answering, all right? Now there are some manuscripts that translate it differently, and the ESV and the NIV and other versions of scripture go with that. And it says rather, at that time Jesus declared. Now that seems to make a little more sense to me going along with the text. At that time Jesus declared, and then he proceeds into prayer to the Father, which is also more of a declaration than an answer to a question. And so in a posture of prayer to God, after a diatribe, you know what I mean by diatribe? That's when you tear down someone with words. when you speak harshly to them, when you point out their sin, you're writing or preaching a diatribe, it's called. And Jesus had just got through with that. If you remember, he said things like, woe to you, Chorazin. Chorazin is a city, right? Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida, another city, right? It'll be more tolerant for Tyre and Sidon, pagan cities at the time, in the Day of Judgment than for you. Why? Because you had all of God's presence and miracles and the gospel preached and didn't repent, and they didn't have all those benefits. It'll be more tolerable for them than for you. That's a diatribe against those cities. And he goes from that posture to saying, ah, but I am gentle and lowly of spirit. It's quite a turn of character for him. So Christ the Lord is indeed, friends, a more complicated person than we sometimes like to admit. It seems to me that the popular characterization of Jesus is much more aligned with the gentle and lonely. low, lowly rather Jesus that we see, um, in this passage, he's lowly in heart than the fire and brimstone Jesus, who we saw a mere two verses before this passage started, where he said to Capernaum, his beloved Capernaum, the headquarters of his ministry, the home of Peter and Andrew, right? He said, if the mighty works, which are done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. So a diatribe then changes immediately to this invitation to the lowly of heart Savior who has a light burden for us to bear. Jesus is indeed a complicated person. Though the Savior invokes a prayer to the Father, it does seem that the close disciples are sitting by. And so these men are standing or sitting there as Jesus refers to them as babes and contrasts them with the wise. And so I suppose it is the same with us. We are babes in that we innocently receive the teaching of Christ. We're wide-eyed about it. We love to hear from the Lord. We rejoice when the word is proclaimed. And we receive it with gracious acceptance. The so-called wise which are undoubtedly the wise of this world, despise the simple teaching that he offers them. And that's the distinction. These wise are the sophisticates of society. I like to say it like this, sophisticates of society. Say that with me, everyone. They had such people then, and we have such people now. We have this intellectual elite, these sophisticates. They are the quote, educated class. Now, I'm saying quote, I think Jesus, I think that Matthew might have used quotes when he called them wise, because it's something they're called, but obviously not something that they are. They are the intellectual elite of the time. It's almost as if such as these despise the implication that there might be anyone who could raise their awareness to a greater level than their own study has already raised it. The wise and prudent could hardly lower themselves to hearken to the warnings and moral instruction of an itinerant messenger from Nazareth. You might remember in the book of Acts, who are these men? They're uneducated. They're untrained. How do they know these things? They even asked Jesus, where did you get this knowledge? The implication being, of course, you didn't study in the great places where we study. From where do you get your authority, they asked him. He was always in contention with the wise of this world. And now, the wise are expected to hear from an itinerant, meaning he moves around the country, prophet of Nazareth. Nazareth had a reputation at that time. It comes through in the first chapter of John, where Nathanael says to Philip, can anything good come out of Nazareth? That was a saying of the time. And Jesus was, of course, a bit of a victim of that reputation that the city had, all right? So they justified themselves by not following this prophet of Nazareth. The concept of the foolish confounding the wise is not restricted to this passage, is We see it throughout the New Testament. There are several such references. And in each case, I would invite you to notice the sovereignty of God in these things. It is not by accident that the wise lack wisdom. It is by design. It is not that the wise and prudent don't have the facility to understand. They're not stupid. They have the facility to understand the sublime declarations of Christ. It's specifically kept from their eyes. They're hearing it, but they're not giving the access into understanding it and owning it the way others did. So God has hidden these things from their eyes. It seems the Savior follows his own advice on the Mount when he said, cast not your pearls before swine, nor give what is holy to the dogs. So the one who society regards as being without wisdom is the one who hungers for it more eagerly. Now, there are exceptions to this. You might remember Nicodemus. He was one of the wise. He was a Pharisee, like Paul, right? Like some. And he came to Christ looking for some answers. And he came humbly. And we like to think that he came secretively, because he came at night, it seems, so no one would see him. And it isn't just a conjecture on our part. Whenever he's introduced at other places in the Gospel of John, it says, oh, and Nicodemus, the one who came to Jesus by night, is this man now. So he grew in Christ. Some of the wise reach out and find themselves in a better place before God. They recognize that though they are wise, they are not infallible. Some church leaders believe they're not infallible. So the apostle writes of it this way. He says, not many wise, according to the flesh, Not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. It's God that creates this dichotomy. So I should tell you today that I'm not seeing a hungering in the church today, and I'm not speaking of our church in particular. I have only anecdotal references of this, but even in the very big churches today, it's often more a show of glory, perhaps in song, rather than a demonstration of godly glory in the proclamation of the word. It seems to me that a desire for what Paul called the deep things of God is not the principal aspect of the worship services we see today. It's the soft answers that we crave. and the harsh warnings that we ignore. Or as the writer of Hebrews put it, by this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food. Friends, we get saved by milk. but we grow because of solid food. And he always makes this growth analogy as a child, milk is for babes and solid food is for those who are full growth, right? The passage offers us a delightful insight into the essential gospel message. It is by Christ that we enter into eternal rest. The message takes us from condemnation to warning. from warning to acceptance, from acceptance to comfort and from comfort to rest. Jesus is not averse, nor is he reluctant to take a parochial stand by favoring one group over another. I remember Pastor Ken saying it distinctly one day in our Wednesday night Bible study. He said, he read a passage like this. It was from John and he said, Jesus is not afraid to be parochial. In other words, favoring one group over another. He does it blithely and he does it throughout the New Testament. In fact, the very next verse makes it plain where he said, even so, Father, it seemed good in your sight. What seemed good in your sight? That you hid these things from the wise and revealed them to babes. That was good in God's sight. So again, the starkness of the Lord's intent comes through. It's not only a fact that some ignore the teaching of Christ, It's God's intention. Now I like to believe, and I think the New Testament bears this out as you go through it, that God dispenses wisdom in stages. It first had to go to Israel. And then it went to Judea and Samaria. And then it went to the outer reaches of the world. And this, it seems to me, is one of those stages, because eventually they do go out and preach the gospel to every creature, and invite every creature to partake of the blessings of Christ. But the starkness of the parochial nature of it at this point is somewhat astounded to us. It's not only the reality of the moment, but it's a good reality in the sight of God. The verse is reminiscent of creation, where the word of God created all things and what? Saw that they were good. The babes have found truth, the prudent rejected it. And God engineered it to be that way, at least for the moment, it seems. It seems that wisdom and prudence, what is prudence? It's practicality. It has to do with works. It seems that wisdom and prudence have a way of crowding out humility. I have great wisdom. If you're saying that, it's obvious humility has left the premises, right? It's not that worldly wisdom is bad. I've spoken on this before. So long as it's tempered with humility, it's really the humility that's missing in the wise. They just won't put themselves at the feet of an itinerant preacher from Nazareth, because nothing good can come out of Nazareth. No prophet ever came out of Nazareth. Of course, the Pharisees were wrong about that. There was one. It was Jonah. He didn't come out of Nazareth, he came out of Galilee, right? No prophet had come out of Galilee, they said, but of course Jonah was one. And they missed that, and it's interesting that Jesus compared himself with Jonah, being in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights, so will the son of man be in the bowels of the earth three days and three nights. So it's not that worldly wisdom is bad, so long as it's tempered with humility. Intelligence, friends, and understanding are not bad things or sinful things in and of themselves. But then, as now, there's a tendency in sinners to use human achievement to elevate ourselves above one another in importance. And we tend to do that. Self-importance is always an impediment to readiness for the gospel. Personal significance will always be an impediment to our readiness for the gospel. Paul alludes to these things from the book of Romans, where he says, professing to be wise, they became fools. And they exchanged the glory of God for the glory of man and did it continually. Friends, wisdom, whatever level of it you have, it's always the gift of God. Wisdom is the gift of God. Remember, it was famously the gift of God to Solomon. But notice what we do with the gift of God. I can use Solomon for an illustration on the other end, too. That he began to take pride in his wisdom and his accomplishments and his closeness to God. And the king began with the right use of wisdom and devolved toward the misuse of it for personal gratification. Friends, we're talking about a man, the wisest who ever lived, who God blessed and God loved, and I believe God saved, but he devolved into a level of personal gratification like we've never seen. I mean, we're talking about a man with 300 wives, I don't know how you do that, and 700 concubines. Imagine remembering all of those anniversaries. You had to marry two or three a day, don't you? What's important to the wise men of our time is not simply that they have obtained some measure of wisdom, but rather an unholy pride in the source of their wisdom. We take pride in the source of our wisdom. You've probably seen that in society. It's quite like invoking the name of your college rather than the actual credential you gained from the college. Do you not know I went to Harvard? Yeah, but what did you do there? We believe the name says it all. We throw the name around. Usually, I find it funny, it's usually not the student that does it, it's usually the parent of the student that does it. But that's just my anecdotal experience. You could say I have an anthropology degree, but people are content to just say I have a degree from a great institution. But like most things in life, there is a genuine and nominal status that men seek. It is just as important for some people to be known for their institution as for their credentials. I've told you a story, it's been a while since I've told you, but many years ago the three boys were small and we were taking a little vacation to Nantucket, and we were on Nantucket, and we went into a whaling museum on Nantucket, and why wouldn't you? Between Nantucket and New Bedford, the great whaling story of Moby Dick was based on those two places right here in Massachusetts, very famously, right? So we went in, and we were looking at the sea mammals and the dolphins and whatever was there, and of course our guide was a very smart guy. And he was telling us all about the sea mammals and how we evolved from them. And he quoted from John F. Kennedy, who famously started a great oceanographic study we could learn so much from the ocean because we came from the ocean he said now I don't say that to disparage Kennedy I liked Kennedy very much if you want to know the truth but it's just a common thought that was thought to be wise at the time so I started you know giving my old creation points and maybe at the time the Ken Ham points and the the Genesis points and I was winning the argument, and it was in front of the crowd. And I knew this is probably not a good moment for this guy, but when I brought him to a place where he didn't know an answer, he said, well, my wife agrees with me, and she has a PhD. Conversation over. This man knows somebody who's smarter than both of us. I already knew there's people out there smarter than both of us, but he felt that that was the nail in the coffin of my argument, that his wife agrees with him. So make no mistake, the disciples are just as surprised as we are that the Lord seems to favor one group over another. And even after we may think that, the Savior doubles down on discrimination. We're very sensitive about discrimination. I mean, that's what it is. That's what the word means. It's generally considered a bad thing to discriminate. The very word has all sorts of hateful implications, doesn't it? What I do for one, I'll not do for the other is essentially what discrimination means. Jesus is not so sensitive, it seems, to the charge. We're sowing the seeds of truth of concern. Some things are just too holy to cast abroad, too precious to broadcast in a wide stream. And so selectivity of subjects becomes the pattern of teaching for the Lord. And make no mistake, the disciples are just as surprised of this behavior as you and I are. They're just as surprised. And so the apostle elaborates on this selective method of teaching, and he writes, these things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. In another passage, the disciples Ask them, why do you keep the truth from them? The practice of coded speech, if you will, that informs one group and withholds from another. That's unsettling to us, but be of good cheer. It was unsettling to the disciples, too. And so they asked Jesus. It says, the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? They were wondering, why don't you just speak plainly? Why are you hiding your speech in little figures and symbols? And Jesus said to them, because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given, at least not yet. So he doubles down on the practice. In our day, he might've said, you know, I'm sorry, I overlooked. There were some people in the room that aren't part of the group. I should make my speech more available. And today that would probably be the right thing. But at that time, Jesus had a purpose for revealing it to some and not to others. It has been given to you to know the mysteries, and it has not been given to them. And as if this answer was not direct enough, Jesus doubles down. He says, whoever has to him more will be given, and he will have abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore, I speak to them in parables. Because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand, And it goes further than this. It isn't as though the disciples are zapped with this special knowledge that they understand the wheat and the tares, or the parable of the soils, but Jesus pulls them aside and tells them what all the things mean, if you remember very famously. Make no mistake, the whole process, friends, is not new, it's old. It was the method since the beginning. And so he invokes the prophet's words, words that were already ancient in Jesus' time. And from Isaiah he says, in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive, for the hearts of the people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, their eyes they have closed, lest They should see with their eyes and hear with their ears. What does lest mean? It means unless, right? Unless they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. Verse 27, all things have been delivered to me by my father. And no one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son and the one to whom the son wills to reveal him. Friends, election is on every page of scripture. I really don't know why it's controversial, but there it is. The first part of the verse ought to go without saying, nobody knows the father except the son and vice versa, right? I hardly think anyone would contend that they know the father in the same way the son of God could know him. There's an eternal relationship there that we might perhaps never understand, nor would anyone think he knows God better than Jesus knows him. But it's the second part of the exchange that garners the argument by some. Why it is so is not plain to me, but the fact that knowing God is essentially his choice and not our individual choice is offensive to some. That doesn't offend me, but it does some. The fact that the savior son of the father is given authority over the individual person to savingly reveal the true and living God has the flavor of favoritism, doesn't it? I think that's the problem with election. It seems like base human favoritism. And favoritism in our culture is a bad thing. We all have it. We all use it. We all do it. Don't we favor our own children over other people's children and things like that? So I'm not going to call it favoritism. I am going to call it nepotism. You know what nepotism is? That's when you choose your family for privileges that you don't offer. to other people, whether they're qualified or unqualified. It seems to me like nepotism, which is a form of favoritism, but the fact that the church represents the family of God is implied throughout the scriptures. We're called the sons and daughters of one man, Abraham. Jesus told the Pharisees, you think you're sons of Abraham, but you're not. Your father is the devil and the works of your father you want to do. Though every person alive or dead, friends, is the family of Adam. And I think this is what confuses us sometimes. We're all the family of Adam, but we're not all the family of Abraham. But we are of the family of Abraham. And it's not a blood relation, it's a faith relation. Blood is the symbol of familial ties, but faith is the substance of it. And so the Apostle Paul wrote this very plainly to the Galatians where he said, therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And this is from a blood relative of Abraham, Paul the Apostle. He eschewed his blood relationship with Abraham and rejoiced in his faith relationship with Abraham. Here's a man who's gladly thrown aside every human and fleshly credential in favor of a spiritual relationship with God. So Paul gave us his resume. He said, we are the circumcision. Now in a context like this, when you see the word circumcision, it is synonymous with Israel. Israel is the circumcision. But he's saying to Christians, no, we are the circumcision. We are the circumcision who worship God in spirit. Remember Jesus at the well. God is seeking those to worship him in spirit and in truth as he must be worshiped. He said, we rejoice in Christ Jesus and we have no confidence in the flesh, in our fleshly achievements. And then he writes, though I also might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I have more. And then he gives the list, the bullet points. I was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. Concerning the law, a Pharisee. Concerning zeal, persecuting the church. Concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ, yet indeed I also count all things loss. for the excellence of the knowledge of christ jesus my lord for whom i have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that i may gain christ you know this isn't just rhetoric we're hearing from the apostle he's in prison as he writes it he's in prison as he tells people that he's always praying in all manner of prayer he tells the philippians he tells them to continue in joy to rejoice always again i say rejoice here he is confined in a prison in Rome. This is his first Roman imprisonment. And he says, I've suffered the loss of all things. I think he means it quite literally. But I count them as rubbish, so long as I have Christ. So how do we know who we are? Are we the babes being revealed the Word of God? Or are we the wise of this world who are being kept from the deep truths of God? How can we know if we're among the privileged insiders of the Savior's teaching? Jesus speaks to this dilemma, this dilemma as what? Labor. He says, are you laboring over the teachings of Christ? Are you interested to know from him what you did not know yesterday? Sometimes I think we're very content to stay right where we are in Christ. We understand it thus far. You get into this kind of dichotomy, it's disturbing. I think to our culture. I think to other cultures as well. But are you laboring over the teachings of Christ? Notice he talks about teaching and learning as a form of labor. The disciple is marked by his labor. He's marked by the things he strives for. He's marked by the things he celebrates, the things he praises, and he is hungering for more and more knowledge of Christ. Verses 28 to 30 say, Jesus invites, come to me all you who labor, all you who are striving and are heavy laden, he says, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So what's the first consideration here in deciphering these verses? It's to locate in scripture the term yoke. What does it mean by yoke? And I assure you it has nothing to do with eggs. It's a sort of heavy wooden harness. I think everyone knows what a yoke is by now, probably, right? But do we? The general description of it is that we have often heard that it's a piece of agricultural equipment. It's made of wood with leather straps, right? It's a harness for two oxen and they're harnessed together as they furrow the field. And it's a yoke. Ties them together, right? It's been explained to us many times that it harnesses a pair of oxen, they're bound together to share a workload. And it's also been told to us that a certain discipline is involved. In other words, an older, more mature animal will sort of lead the way because he knows how to furrow the ground, he knows how to walk straight, and the younger animal is there being pulled along and dragged along and led along by the older, wiser ox. So it's been explained to us that way, and to me, many times. But note, the burden the Savior speaks of is simply to learn from me. That's the burden he's talking about. He's not necessarily talking about all the things that trouble us in this life, but there's a certain labor in learning from me, and he wants to make that a comfort to us. Now, there are a number of Old Testament references that would seem to support that view of the two oxen plowing the field, the older ox and the younger ox, and at least two New Testament references. You might remember Paul said, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. That's definitely a reference to that yoke. But what's often been overlooked is the equally representative allusion to a human yoke. Karen found a very nice picture at the front of your bulletin. There's a human yoke. Perhaps you have seen that maybe in artwork, maybe in movies. right, of different times. Maybe in foreign countries that aren't so well developed as ours and people have the yoke, the implement, and they're carrying two buckets or burdens because it's much easier to carry them on your shoulders than just with your arms. It's also an agricultural instrument. It's a wooden harness carved and refined to fit over a person's neck and shoulders from which he might carry a double burden of buckets each hanging off the sides. Can you picture that? The yoke, though it is a burdensome thing, is a useful tool. It helps you get the work done, but you're glad to take it off at the end of the day. It helps a person carry a double load. Jeremiah refers to it like this, and there are references to the human yoke throughout scripture. So Jeremiah writes, thus says the Lord to me, make for yourself bonds and yokes and put them on your neck. Now that's definitely that human yoke, and it's not a reference to the animal yoke, right? And he goes on to instruct the people to yoke themselves to Nebuchadnezzar. I would love to preach on that section, but I'm not going to do it this morning. There's a great series hiding in those words. And he's telling the captive Israel to put the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar. In other words, the burden of that king, where I have put you, and you will honor that nation, and you will pray for that nation, he told them. That's the yoke that you'll each bear. He goes so far as to say that whoever will not put his neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish, says the Lord. So the Lord means this. And I use this only to display to you that what Jesus is referring to, I have come to believe is the single human yoke and not the double animal yoke. R.T. France contends for the human yoke in this passage and not the animal version. And he writes this, however appealing the idea of being in double harness with Jesus may be, that is not the point, he says. He's offering those who are finding their loads too hard to carry a new yoke, which far from adding to their repression will ease the burden and paradoxically will bring not further toil, but rest. And he goes on to explain this. So if we're careful with the text, the Lord is not prescribing a removal of the yoke, the burden of toil, but rather an exchange of masters. He told the Israelites to follow Nebuchadnezzar. He told, he's telling us to follow Christ. It is Christ's yoke that we put on. One who is demanding, a master who is demanding, we exchange for one who is meek. Toiling, striving, hungering, laboring. They don't cease in this life, but the The one for whom we commit ourselves to work is exchanged. Satan is a cruel master, a task master. Not so with the Lord. When we work for our new master, even our toil is a form of rest. And that is the point, it seems to me. R.T. France goes on. He says, what makes the difference is what sort of master one is serving. So the beneficial effect of Jesus' yoke derives from the character of the one who bids us to bear it. We often think that meekness and authority are exclusive of one another. Jesus is obviously both. He's authoritative, woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida, right? And he's obviously meek, and he speaks of himself in exactly that way. But they're not exclusive in the kingdom of God, they're inclusive. They're not exclusive. Meekness and authority do not exclude each other in the person of Christ. He is both. People like to say, well God is love, and you're saying something that's not loving. And I like to say God is love. But that's not all He is. God's a lot of other things too. God is a God of wrath as well. He's demonstrated that if we know anything about scripture. And so I want to close with a quotation from the lexicon on the Greek word anapasis that is the word used here for rest, for entering into his rest. And so we read, Christ's rest is not a rest from work, but in work. You know, when we get to heaven, I don't think we just lie around on couches and eat grapes and someone fans us, or type thing. No, I think there's a tending of a new, refreshing form of labor that we find there. Christ's rest is not a rest from work, but in work. This is the lexicon and the word he uses for rest, all right? Not the rest of inactivity, but of the harmonious working of all the faculties and affections of will, of heart, imagination, conscience, because each has found in God the ideal sphere for its satisfaction and development. Father, may you give us such rest. May we take upon us the yoke you are offering and learn from you. For we have found you gentle and lowly of spirit, as you have proclaimed, we proclaim, in Jesus' name, amen.