Friends, brothers and sisters, I invite you now to open your scriptures to Matthew 11. We will be reading Matthew 11, 25 through 30 today as our scripture reading for this sermon. This text, considered by many as a very rich and theologically full passage, just a few verses in this passage of Matthew 11, 25 through 30 has so much rich theology and dense practice in our lives that many commentators are just overflowing with all the riches in this section. We've progressed in Matthew up until this point in Matthew 11, and now we are coming to a very intimate and exalting portion of Matthew's gospel. So please pay attention as this is the very word of God, the very word of the infallible and living God. Matthew 11, starting in verse 25. At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will 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. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord endures forever. Let us go before our Heavenly Father and ask for his blessing on his word. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. It is more precious to us than gold and great riches and we thank you for these words, for these comforting words of Christ and the Gospel of Matthew and pray that you would open it to us today, open it to me as I speak and as I reclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we see in these six verses. We thank you for giving us this day in your word and we thank you for all things in the name of Christ, amen. If you have seen the news recently or on a screen, social media, the newspaper, education has been a hot topic recently. In all different areas, in all different communities around our country, it's been dividing people, institutions, and families, educating. How do we educate our children? How do we educate the next generation in teaching them knowledge and all different types of subjects? It's been hotly disputed in the country. I'm sure that many of you, almost all of us, have seen it in the news recently. How do we teach and educate the next generation? Well, this passage, just like all of the Gospels, is about education, is about teaching. And it's more than just facts and information. It's about a greater goal, greater wisdom, and a truth claim. And here in our passage, just like the previous verses and chapters of Matthew, Jesus has a truth claim. And he's teaching his disciples. He's teaching the multitude. But he's also teaching us today, 2,000 years later, the truth claim that he proclaims and that we should get comfort on and take encouragement by. So Jesus has been teaching up to this point all throughout what Matthew has recorded. He started in chapter 4, as it's recorded that Jesus opened up his mouth and proclaimed the gospel of repentance. And then in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7, Jesus is preaching. And then at the beginning of this chapter, chapter 11, Matthew writes, when Jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. The cities of Galilee, that is his ministry that he's teaching and preaching, not just his 12, but all the people in the synagogues and in the fields as he's preaching to the multitudes. And he's teaching them. He's teaching them about himself and about the kingdom, Remember, Matthew, that's one of his major motifs and themes in the book of Matthew, is the kingdom. The kingdom has come in Christ. And he's ushering in the kingdom of God and the person of Jesus Christ. But not all accept this kingdom. Not all accept this teaching. In the verses right before our passage for the day, in verses 20 through 24, The cities of Galilee are rejecting, as a whole, not everyone, rejecting their Messiah, the great miracles that he does, the great teaching in the synagogues. They are being foolish in their hearts. They are being foolish, and they are getting condemnation spoken by Jesus to these cities. These are very foolish, unwise cities. But Jesus is calling us not to be foolish. to accept his teaching and to accept his invitation. So brothers and sisters, we are to be humble. We are to be humble and come to Jesus to learn from him. We are to be humble and come to Jesus and learn from him. This passage, these six verses, are easily divided into two sections. The first is the instruction, verses 25 through 27, the instruction of Jesus. And then he goes on to the invitation. He calls those that he has taught and invites them in to worship him, to accept him as the Messiah, and as he calls them to this invitation in the last three verses. So we have the instruction in section one and the invitation in section two. So we have this contrast in the first verse, in verse 25. At this time, or at that time, Jesus declared. The same parallel passage in Luke, in Luke 10, says, at that very hour. So we don't know what city that Jesus is in in Galilee, but he's in some region of Galilee at this time, as Matthew kind of marks his passage of time with this phrase, maybe not pinpointing the exact location or the exact hour, as Luke and John do. He says, at this time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise. The wise, the wisdom of this world, Jesus is thankful. He praises God that he's hidden his gospel He's hidden the wisdom that come to him from those that are unrepentant, those that are foolish, among the cities of Galilee, among these cities that he is preaching in, just the verses before he described and condemned, the wise of this world. And in our world, we can see those people that think they are wise in their own eyes, as the scripture says. They have the wisdom of this world versus the spiritual wisdom of the heavenly world of God. And in the Gospels, this is a theme throughout the Gospels, that people, whether it's the woman at the well, or Nicodemus, or others, or the people in general, in John 6, just see the tangible reality of this world. But they don't see the spiritual reality that Jesus is speaking of. It's a ditch that many in this time, many individuals in the Gospels and us today in our society can fall into just seeing the tangible natural world that Jesus has created, that God created and is good. but do not see the spiritual reality, the spiritual teaching of the heavenly world, of the Messiah that is in front of them, that is in front of us, that we don't go to the spiritual truth, but just go after the physical nature of this world. So Jesus is contrasting this in his thankfulness to God. He's thanking the Father. He's praising the Father for hiding to the wise, to the arrogant, to the proud, his teaching. In James writes, in the book of James, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. And we are to be the humble. We are to be the lowly in heart that come to Jesus and not be proud, as those in the visible church in Capernaum and Galilee are doing at this time in the gospel, as Jesus is preaching in Galilee, those that are wise in their own eyes. Paul writes about this, the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2. And he has that contrast between if you remember, the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. And he says that the believers in the church in Corinth, not all of them are smart, as the world considers intelligence. Not all of them are wise and have great learning like the Greeks or those around them. But they do have that spiritual understanding, a spiritual wisdom that comes from above. And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to them. But those that are from God, that accept the understanding, the truth of God, they are spiritually discerned. They understand the truth of God. And that's what the Jewish leaders and the elites and the people of Galilee as a whole are not accepting. They're accepting the foolishness of this world, even though it's masked in truth. That's a great warning to us not to fall into pride and go after the intelligence and the wisdom of this world, not the creation is good as God created it, but the wisdom that is from man at the same time rejecting the wisdom that is from God. He created all things. He's given us his word, his truth and his word. And Jesus is saying that he's thanking the Father that he's hidden this truth of the gospel from those that are proud in heart, those that are not humble. But he is revealing it to little children, to babes, heart, this spiritual posture of learning of God, like the disciples, even if they're babes in the faith, they're coming to God lowly and coming to Jesus in a posture just like a child comes to a mother and comes, maybe not full understanding, but comes because of love and affection and desire to know the truth, the source of all knowledge and wisdom that God gives to us. So the father that Jesus prays to is giving this wisdom to babies. And we see children, babies being spoken of as believers throughout the Gospels. And into Paul's writings and into John's writings in the New Testament, Christians are compared to children, to babes, that are eagerly wanting to go after the pure milk of the word and not to go after pride and the false wisdom of the world that we sometimes are drawn to. And Jesus is saying this in verse 25. He's praying. for the little children, and he's thanking God that he is sovereign over whom he gives wisdom to. Then in verse 26, Jesus says undoubtedly, yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. And at this point, like the other areas of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of John brings this out a little bit more, we see the Trinity, the mystery of the Trinity revealed. And Matthew comprises this and compressed this into these short verses, while John takes dozens and dozens of verses to talk about the Trinity, to describe the mystery of the Trinity as we can understand it in the Word. Matthew takes it to these few verses, and the other Synoptic Gospels do that as well. And we see the mystery of the Trinity. Remember that the Trinity is not fully understandable, it's not fully graspable, but it is knowable. We can know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We confess in our confessions, in our catechisms. Children, if you remember the catechism question and answer on the Trinity, the Godhead, that God is in three persons, one God of the same substance, equal in power and glory. And Jesus is giving us this glimpse of the Trinity in his words. He's praying to the Father. by the power of the Holy Spirit that he's anointed with about wisdom and about God's predestination and his sovereign choosing of who the father has given the son to reveal his gospel to. So we see this unique relationship of the son and the father in these two verses. One commentator writes about these verses that this unique relationship between the father and the son is not fully understandable, but it is unique. It's unique and it is knowable in our understanding. So Matthew writes and says that Jesus says, Father, for such was your gracious will, and the will, the sovereignty of God, that he has chosen who he gives the Son to reveal his word to. It was his great pleasure of God and his sovereign will to choose those children to reveal his gospel to. So theologians call this the doctrine of predestination, the doctrine of God in his great pleasure and his knowledge revealed understanding to those and given faith to those to whom he chooses. That in the eternity of past that God chose out of his good pleasure those to give faith and understanding and salvation too. And Jesus is thanking the Father for that pleasure, for that will of the Father in giving a gift of salvation to the people of God. So verse 27 brings us into this unique gift that the Father has given the Son, this Trinitarian mystery. But we do have these verses that we can read the relationship between the Father and the Son, these attributes of the Son that the Father has as well. these incommunicable attributes of the father and the son that they have in their relationship to one another. that this doctrine of predestination, though a mystery, though hard to understand, is beautiful. And it should be taught with graciousness and understanding. But it is rooted in these verses, in verses 25 and 26, that it is the gracious pleasure of God to give the Son those that the Son will call and that will come to the Son. In Galatians, Paul writes that in the fullness of time, God sent his son and he sent him born of a woman to redeem those that he, in his good pleasure, has given the son to call. And that's what Matthew writes in verse 27. All things have been handed over to me by my father, Jesus says, and no one knows the son except the father. This inter-Trinitarian knowledge that the father and son, this relationship within the Trinity, And no one knows the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal. So the authority and the power of the father has been given to the son, both one God and three persons, and to whom the son calls and reveals himself to them who will be drawn to the son. So this authority as an ambassador has been sent from heaven, just as an ambassador in the human sense has the authority of the sovereign of that nation, so the son here in verse 27 has the authority of the father. He has the authority from heaven to give the message, to reveal the wisdom, the power, eternal life to those that the father is drawing, that the son has the authority to reveal it to. So just like a human ambassador has his authority from his sovereign, but he also has his mission. And his mission he doesn't give to everyone. He doesn't give it to all of the foreign powers. He gives it just to his staff, or he gets it from his superiors. In this passage, we see that Jesus is getting this authority from the Father, but he's also getting his mission from the Father, to reveal to those that are coming to him, that are being drawn, that the Son reveals eternal life to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. So we see this beautiful teaching, beautiful instruction of God's pleasure, his will, his sovereign predestining, those that the Son will reveal eternal life to. In the language of the Trinity, we can draw from our confessions, even if we are somewhat cautious and careful in our teaching of the Trinity. we can have confidence in using the language of the early church, of the confessions, and our standards in talking about the relationship between the Father and the Son. And looking back to Matthew 11, 25 through 27, to learn about God's will and His sovereignty and His gracious pleasure in calling us to the Son, that the Son might reveal His compassion and Himself as the one that is the Messiah and the Savior of the world. So in these three verses, this first section, we have the instruction. We have the instruction of Jesus to his disciples, to the multitude, to those in Galilee that are overwhelmingly rejecting him. But he's thanking the Father that the Father has given those elect, those that will come, to him. These disciples, those disciples that are following Jesus and that are coming to him as the Messiah, that the Father has given those to the Son, and they will come to him. So when we speak of the sovereignty of God as it's applied to our life, the question from these verses practically is, is do we also give thanks and praise to the Father for His sovereign good pleasure in our lives? And not just in a general sense, but in an experiential sense in our own lives practically, Do we might know about the sovereignty of God, God's predestination, these doctrines, but have they impacted our hearts? Have we experientially known God's sovereignty, his good pleasure in our own lives? for salvation, regeneration, and new birth, but also in our daily life of sanctification. And as we go throughout our week and day, we know that God is sovereign over all actions and should create and foster a heart of thanksgiving. of praise, just like the son is giving praise to the father for his sovereignty, his gracious will, his gift that he's giving the son. He's given us a gift. He's given a gift of Christ. but also a gift of his sovereignty that he is in control. And we are living within his world. And we are creatures. And those that he's given us salvation to are redeemed by the blood of Christ that should impact our lives, should create thanksgiving in our hearts, and praise to the Father, and thanksgiving to the Father as we worship him for his sovereign will of sending the Son and of thanksgiving that we have because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then we move on to section two. And if you remember in Matthew, later on we'll get to Matthew 22, with a parable of the wedding feast. If you remember that parable from the other gospels, we have the king, and he has a son, and he's sending out invitations and kind of summarizing that parable. And some people are not coming, and then he sends out more invitations, and others are coming from the byways and the highways of the city and the region. And we can see that in Matthew 11 as well. The parable of Matthew 22 is almost lived out in Matthew 11, that we have the cities of Galilee are overwhelmingly rejecting the Messiah. But then those that are the 12 or the inner circle of the disciples and those others that are the disciples are coming. They're accepting the invitation of the king for the great wedding of his son that he has come. and invitations have been sent, and that all should come to the wedding feast of the king." So just as a parent, as I call my two daughters to me for instruction, as I call them for dinner, I know as parents do that, we don't do that perfectly. And children don't always do that perfectly. They don't always obey. They sometimes rebel and sin. They don't always accept. the instruction and the invitation and the command of their parents, as you guys experience in your daily lives. We are sinful. We're sinful fathers and mothers. We're sinful children, children you don't always obey. Or in the sinful world, even if we do, we sometimes don't have the heart to obey our earthly parents or those that are over us. But God is not like that. He is perfect in Christ and his sinful nature as the God-man. He is God and he has come to extend this invitation. So this invitation is not tainted with sin and this invitation is not like a human command to come from a parent to a child, but it is a pure invitation. And we see this beautifully demonstrated in the last three verses, the invitation. So we are to accept Christ's invitation, just like we are to accept his instruction in the first three verses. We are to accept his invitation to come to him, to come to him. And why are we to accept his invitation to come to him? We're going to look at his character, that he is gentle and lowly in heart. And we are not always gentle and lowly in heart, are we? We are weighed down with sin. As Jesus says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We are under a weight of sin in our lives. We were born into sin, as the psalmist says, as David says in the Psalms, and as we clearly see in scripture. And we are daily under the weight of sin, under the sin of the world, under the sin of those around us, of our own flesh, and the attacks of the enemy. We are under this weight of sin that casts us down. As the commentators write, that sin makes us tired. We can see that in our own lives, experientially, that sin, the effects of sin, whether we are sinning and thought we're indeed, or someone is sinning to us. that the effect of sin makes us tired. The sin upon the world casts us down. In our own lives, collectively, and throughout church history and redemptive history, we see in the scriptures that sin is a weight that is upon us individually and as a whole. And Jesus, he's been preaching about coming to him and repenting of the sin of the people. And he says that in a couple of verses before to the cities of Galilee, that they should repent. Remember the early part of Matthew, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand as Jesus is preaching this simple message of repentance and faith and belief in himself. and in the kingdom that he is ushering that is himself. So we are to come, this invitation, this extending of the hand from the Son, that we are to come. And who are we to come to? Look at the text in verse 28. Matthew writes that Jesus says, come to me. So we are not to come to an institution, not to come to a human person, but we are to come to Christ, the person, the God-man that came down, that lived a perfect life on our behalf, that died, was buried, and that rose again. We are to come to Jesus, and he will give us rest. He's the one that will take our burden, as a Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, the burden and the weight of a massive backpack that is weighing us down, that word picture of sin in our own lives that has cast us down. And that Jesus has invited us. He said, come those that are burdened with sin, and I will receive you. whoever labors that are heavy laden, and that would be everyone, everyone that we have been born into sin, that we live before regeneration in our love of sin and our captivity to sin and the lack of rest in our lives, Jesus is saying, come. So it is important that we go to Christ, that we come to him and to him alone to relieve us of the burden, the captivity of sin. Many commentators first go to the law. The law is the one that reveals the sin. The law of the Old Testament, the law of God, reveals the sin in our lives. And commentators say that that law has been removed. And in one way, the law has been removed. And the freedom that is in Christ has been removed as a burden because of the freedom that we have in Christ. Of course, the law is the character of God that remains eternal. But they say that Mosaic law that had been a burden because the sacrificial system, all the things that had been placed on the Old Testament children of God are now fulfilled in Christ. And he has set us free, as Paul writes, from the burden of the law. that Christ fulfilled the law perfectly, that we run to Christ just like the Old Testament saints, and the sacrificial law has ended with Christ as he is the last and ultimate sacrifice, the Lamb of God. So the Lord God is a jealous God, and he calls us at this invitation to come to him exclusively And there are no reservations needed. There's no reservations. We don't need to work and get ourselves together and get our sin together and polished up, then come to him. But we come to him freely and come immediately to him. And those that are thirsty go directly to water. And we that are thirsty and in need of Christ should run to him for new birth every day as we're growing in the faith if we are believers to run to Christ exclusively and come to him in repentance and in faith. But there is a warning here. There's a warning that the Jews in Galilee, the echo of that warning lives today. This refusal that John writes about in the Gospel in John 5 and John 6, and as Matthew is recording in Matthew 11, the refusal of the people, the Jewish people of this time period, that refused the Messiah. And so warning to us not to refuse Christ, the invitation of the Gospel, but also the invitation every single day to run to him, to come to him, When we are tired, the effects of sin, the burdens, the hard providences of our life, to not be stubborn, stiff-necked, just like those people in Galilee. So we are tired. The effect of sin weighs us down. And Jesus says that we are to find rest in him. Rest in him initially by accepting his gospel, but find rest in him in this life. And as the author of Hebrews says, ultimate rest in heaven. We find in the person of Jesus Christ, we find rest for our souls. Yes, our bodies, but Christ is saying rest for our souls in these verses. We find rest in Christ himself from the effects of sin, the burden, the yoke of sin. So the picture of a yoke is Jesus is ironically saying that the yoke that would connect two oxen during this time period, the day, two horses, it would tie them together and weigh them down and direct them, that yoke that would be the Old Testament law, the regulations, has been freed in Christ. that this yoke that is exchanged and a yoke that is Christ is now put upon us. So he takes a yoke, the weight of sin, the condemnation of the law that is good, but that weighed down us in our sinful condition before salvation, and that Christ is doing an exchange, the great exchange of the yoke of sin for the yoke of himself, his yoke. He is the yoke that he's speaking of in this word picture of his yoke is easy and light, because he is gentle and lowly in heart. So he invites us to come to him. and take his yoke, his yoke of kindness and love, his yoke of all of his character and attributes in repentance. We are to come in repentance to him, and he will set us free, free from the burden of sin, the condemnation of sin, as Paul writes about in his writings, and free from all of the condemnation of our past sins, that we are free in Christ. If the Son has set us free, John writes, we are free indeed. But Jesus also, during this whole time period, has been instructing his disciples. So he says the invitation is to come to him and take his yoke, but also not to stop there, but to learn from him. It says in verse 29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That we are to learn from Jesus. he is the great teacher. He's been teaching those in Galilee all along, and he is teaching us. Those of you that are teachers know the difficulty of teaching students. I teach at a Christian school, and there are students that are sometimes easy to teach and sometimes a little bit difficult to teach. But Christ, he is saying everyone come to him, this invitation, and learn from him because He is a gentle and a lowly teacher. His character is gentle, is meek, and lowly in heart. And he's calling those that come to him to learn from him as eternal students, as students of the scripture and believers all throughout history. So think of Adam and Eve in the garden, learning from God. Think of the Old Testament believers learning from God. Think of the disciples here in Jesus' time learning from him. And Christ has been teaching his people all throughout redemptive history. And here, in this revealing of himself, this unique revealing in these three verses that are unique just to Matthew, that are not in the portion of Luke, that Jesus reveals his heart, And many commentators and many devotions will say, many authors will write that this is the only place where Jesus reveals, that speaks of his heart, speaks of his attribute from his very mouth. And if we know the Psalms and we know the rest of the scripture that God is spoken about, that he is a kind God, a loving God, a gracious God, that he is meek and mild in heart, But here we have Jesus describing his very heart, the one that we are to come to and find rest in. He describes himself as meek and lonely and heart. And he's a good teacher, a teacher that guides his people and is gentle with his students as he instructs them in the way, instructs them in the wisdom to go. And we see this all throughout the Gospels, that this school of Christ, that Christ is calling his disciples to learn from him, accept his teaching, accept who he is and his attributes, and model all lives after his life. Learn from the example of himself, that he is gentle. In the Greek, it is progressive, that he is gentle, he is lowly, he is meek and humble in heart, and he is continuously like that. He has been like this throughout all eternity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they have gentleness and lowliness in heart to those that the Son has revealed his gospel to, that are coming and accepting the invitation of the Son, he is gentle and lowly in heart. And that should be a comfort to us as believers, but also to those that have not come to Christ. It's a warning that he brings judgment, as the Psalms say, and as is in the previous verses in the judgment that he gives to Capernaum and to the other cities of Godly that do not accept the invitation of Christ. that in his holy judgment, he is still humble and gentle, and his attributes of being tender and loving and humble to his children coexist with his judgment and his wrath at the same time that all of the attributes and the character of God and of Christ are at the same time one and equal. So as believers, we should learn from Christ, model our lives after Christ. He is our Savior, but he's also our example. As Paul writes in Philippians 2, that just as believers, we are to be one, and as the Father and Son are one, we are to look to Christ in his life, his attributes, What he did on our behalf, he humbled himself, came down to earth, and in Matthew 11, in the Gospel of Matthew, we see what he does, his gospel, his ministry on earth as the God-man. We are to look at him as an example, to be humble. to come to Christ, to learn from him and learn from his identity, that he is humble and gentle in heart, and to find comfort in God and find rest in him. One commentator writes about Jesus and his identity of being humble and lowly in heart. But how shall any man be brought willing and gently to bend his neck unless by putting on meekness he conformed to the image of Christ? The example of Christ that we have in these verses, in these unique verses of Christ's attributes, should be an encouragement but also a model to us, should run to Christ run to him for salvation and run to him for rest. And this is what we call in the Christian walk our union with Christ. The yoke of sin has been removed through the blood of Christ, and the yoke of Christ himself, by our acceptance of the invitation of the gift of the Son of salvation to his people, have been accepted. And it is light and easy, this yoke of Christ. It has been set us free. to bear our cross, to live in Christ, to be united with him in this spiritual and real way that we have freedom from our sin, the burden of sin, the condemnation of sin in Christ. These verses come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. should be great encouragement to the Christian, should be great encouragement to us all, every human being, to come to Christ and to take the yoke of Christ himself upon us in repentance of sin and come to Christ for salvation. For he is gentle, he is meek, as the scriptures say, he is lowly in heart, and we will find rest not just rest for our physical bodies in the new heavens and the earth, but rest for our souls that we have. And as we look upon Christ, his character, his heart in these verses, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light. There is a echo throughout the Bible of learning of Christ, but also coming to him. All the way from Genesis to Revelation, and here in Matthew 11, of coming to Christ, learning from him, and accepting his invitation and finding rest. The coming to God. sinners saved by grace in Jesus Christ, we are to come to him. And Jesus says these words, he said these words many years ago as Matthew records them, but he says them at the very end of the scriptures in Revelation 22. He says, Come to me. Jesus says, the spirit and the bride say, come. And let the one who hears say, come. And let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price. So Jesus is telling us to come to him, learn from him in a humble and contrite spirit, and we will find rest for our souls. and look to Christ, go to Christ in his humility, in his meekness, in his low stature, in his heart that is humble and generous and abounding in love and kindness, we are to accept his invitation, accept his teaching, and come to him for rest. Let us pray.