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Matthew chapter 11 and just the
few closing verses of the chapter. These are the words of the Lord
Jesus. I'm not sure if you use a red
letter Bible. Uh, some think it's not a good
idea to put different portions of the Bible in different colors. The idea of a red letter Bible
is that the very words of the Lord Jesus are in red and they
sort of stand out. But then the concern is, does
that make the other portions of the Bible less valuable? And they shouldn't be, should
never be. But it is helpful just to know the words of the Lord
Jesus. And in verse 25 of Matthew 11,
you have, at that time, Jesus answered and said, and the rest
of this chapter, are all the words of the Lord. They are all
very personal, they are direct to our hearts, and they are intended
for us to plead and claim. I thank thee, O Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from
the wise and 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 labour
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. Amen. Our Father, we pray today that
you will lead us to Calvary. We've been singing about it,
we've been praying about it. We ask that through your word
and by these precious words in Matthew 11, that you will indeed
lead us to Calvary. We pray that burdens will be
lifted at Calvary today. The burden of sin the burden
of our mortality, the brevity of life, that one day we must
lay down this tent and cross over into the glory. Oh Lord, we pray that this will
be a time when you come in grace to minister to our hearts. Thank
you for each brother and sister, each believer, Thank you for
the grace of the gospel and the gift of faith that you've granted
to each one. Lord, speak now. Let there be
a word for each heart. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I think this statement of the
Lord Jesus, come onto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest, has to be The mountain peak promise
of the Lord, of all the promises that the Lord Jesus ever has
given, I think this has to be one of the most precious of all,
that he would give rest to our souls. Now, there are times when
we need rest for our bodies. There is time to pray for the
healing of our bodies. There is time to pray for physical
strength and all of that. But this is rest for your soul,
that part of you that is immortal, the part of you that is made
in the image of God, the part of you that will never die, that
will live on for all eternity. And so to find soul rest is absolutely
wonderful. And to have that today, especially
as we come to the communion table, which is a ministry of reminding
us that the Lord Jesus hath done all for us that we would have
eternal glory. That is wonderful. Now, I simply
want to answer the question today. How can the Lord Jesus give us
soul rest? What an amazing claim to make.
Come on to me and I will give you rest. He doesn't send us
to a church. He doesn't send us to a Sanhedrin or some religious
center. But he personally, he says, I
will do it. I will give you soul rest. And how can he do that? Well,
let's look at the verse, and let's look at what preceded this,
that Jesus gives rest because of his Father's authority behind
the promise. The Lord just can't dish out
empty promises. He has to back them up. And in
verse 27, he says, all things are delivered unto me of my Father."
And so what the Lord Jesus was promising, he was not giving
solo. He was uniting and giving what
his Father ordained. And indeed, the Lord Jesus would
be the channel through which this soul rest would come. Now, in this verse 27, you will
see that the Lord Jesus reveals the Father. 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 of course, this is the reason
why the Lord Jesus come into the world, to reveal the Father. The Father is pure Spirit. Jesus
took a human body, and he lived in this world in a supernatural
life. He lived in power and sinlessness
and in victory over the world. And in every way of life, he
reflected the Father. Indeed, the Bible says he is
the image of the father. Could you imagine if you moved
into a neighborhood, and you were living to a family next
door, and the only person you ever saw was the son? You never
saw the father, but you knew that he was the resident in the
home, but only the son came out the door. Only the son was visible
at any time, and he's the only one of the family you've met.
It's the son. And from the Son, you would learn
what the Father is like. And the way he talks and the
promises and the statements that he makes would all reflect the
will of his Father. And that way, we enjoy the knowledge
of God the Father through the Lord Jesus. And through his teaching
and through his grace and miracles, we learn of the nature of the
father. So he reveals the father, he
revels in the father, and he also reconciles us to the father. You will see here, all things
are delivered onto him by the father. Jesus is the mediator. Or if you want to use another
term, a broker. So if you're buying some commodity,
fertilizer, whatever you might be purchasing for your farm,
there may be no merchant in town, where do you go? You call up
a broker, someone who can search around and get you the best bargain.
And that broker will mediate for you. And they will say, this
farmer, Joe Blow, he wants a hundred tons of fertilizer and we want
to deliver it on a certain date. We want it at the best price.
And he's working on your behalf and he delivers for you. And the Lord Jesus is like that. He is our mediator. and you call
upon him to deliver to you everything that the Father has in store. And so he is our mediator, and
we work through him all the time. Now, the Lord has the right to
do that because he's the head of the church. He is the judge
of all men. And he has all the power and
authority given to him by the Father. Jesus said it himself,
all power in heaven and earth is given unto me. Go ye therefore
into all the world and preach the gospel. And so the gospel
that we preach is backed up with the authority of the Lord and
the Father. And this is our wonderful assurance. You remember the story in Genesis
about Joseph when he was sold down into Egypt and he ended
up becoming the prime minister of Egypt. And for the years of
plenty, he gathered in the corn, filled all the barns, and then
the years of famine came. And the Egyptians were crying
out to Pharaoh, give us corn, give us bread. And what did he
say? Go to Joseph. Go to Joseph. He was the one who was given
the keys of the barns. He was the one who had the authority
to dispense the grain and the bread. And he is a great type
of the Lord Jesus. In fact, there is no character
in the Bible that has more parallels to the life of the Lord Jesus
than Joseph. A.W. Pink, the Bible writer and
commentator, he has a book with 101 parallels between the life
of Joseph and the life of the Lord Jesus. And that statement
where Pharaoh said, go to Joseph, is really a picture the father
saying, go to Jesus, go to my son, trust in him. You want soul rest, you want
food for your soul, you want to be satisfied, go to Jesus
in your hunger and in your need. If you have done that, What rest
has already come in? And you can testify of that.
You can enjoy that sweet, blessed, beloved peace that is in your
soul. And you're coming today to the
communion table to taste again. and you're praying by faith,
Lord, nourish my faith. Feed me and nurture my faith
in the Lord Jesus. Give me stronger faith in the
Lord Jesus. And that's a prayer we should
all make as we come to the communion table. As you know, in Hebrew,
1 Corinthians 11, that chapter where we are instructed about
communion, it says that we are to discern his body. We are to
eat and drink worthily with knowledge and discernment. about the body
of the Lord Jesus. And Christians, Bible believers,
they know Christ is the only Savior. They know that he was
appointed by the Father, and they know that he's the only
mediator between God and men. And with that knowledge and with
that faith, we go and take the cup and we take the bread into
our hands and we feed upon them as tokens of the sacrifice that
the Lord Jesus made upon that cross. Now, to try and divvy
this up a little further, my second point is that Jesus gives
soul rest because he gives soul rest. Now, we already learned
that this is rest for souls. but do we really grasp what that
means in real terms? What does this rest look like
and how is it experienced within our souls? Now, the Lord uses
a wonderful analogy in a picture to explain this. The example
of an oxen yoked to another ox or calf, a young animal perhaps,
And when the oxen is pulling a cart or plowing in the field,
then the young ox has to learn to follow along. But if the young
ox was all by itself, maybe he's just a year old and he hasn't
got all the muscle of the mature ox, he couldn't pull the weight. He couldn't do the work. But
when that wooden yoke is put upon both those animals, and
I'm sure in farming life you've got many of those yokes around
your farmyard yet, that wooden instrument where it went around
the breast of one animal and around the breast of the second
animal, And then they were clamped together over their necks that
formed a yoke so that they would pull the weight more equally
and bear the load equally. Well, that's a wonderful picture
of the Lord Jesus coming alongside you and me and bearing the burden. He is that strong ox that takes
up the heavy load, and he bears us along. That really is the
picture of the Christian life, of being borne along by the power
of the Lord, and he undertakes for us in this way. The Lord never sends you to do
his work alone. He promises, go ye into all the
world and preach the gospel. And lo, I am with you always. And so we can serve the Lord
with that assurance that he will be our burden bearer along the
way. And it means that you place yourself
in step with all the purposes and the will of God in Christ.
Never be afraid. of being in the very center of
God's will. And when you are in that place
of obedient and that knowledge that this is where God would
have me to be, he will help you. He will be your burden bearer
to carry you along. It also means that we are to
live a life of submission. Take my yoke upon you, he says. This is to submit ourselves,
and I think here we often fail, and we end up doing the work
alone. We end up feeling that we're doing it in our own strength
because we haven't submitted to the yoke. Now, think about
the young animal again. Think of the plow that has to
be pulled or the cart that has to be dragged along. And that young animal will not
submit to the yoke. He's kicking against it and fighting
it, and not really going along with the other ox. And so he's
trying to do it alone. And you can see the trouble,
the problems, and how it won't work. And likewise in our lives,
when we try to do things alone, When we don't submit, when we
don't get into line with what the Lord would have us do, we
end up carrying the load alone. And so the testimony of the Christian
is, I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me. It's Jesus and me. I can't do
it alone. If the Lord goes with me, I can
do it. If the Lord carries me along,
I can do it. and there is this unison of working
together. Now, it's a wonderful thing to
be united to the Lord Jesus because he really is an easy master,
and he is a good master to serve. Now, anyone who does not serve
the Lord Jesus is still serving someone, and the unsaved, the
ungodly, are serving the devil. And he is a hard taskmaster. He is the one that takes from
us and takes from us and takes from us. He will take everything
away from you. And we see that in the ungodly.
We see that in the world. And of course, he will take their
soul too. And he will take them down to hell, to eternal damnation,
because they will not submit to Christ, the devil becomes
their master, and they end up with all the burden of sin and
the burden of destruction. And we've got to realize that
souls are led captive by the devil, and he just drags them
along in his spiritual chains, dragging them down to perdition.
And so we today are rejoicing that we have Christ as our master. He's a good master. He loves
us. He cares for our souls, and he
will lead us all the way to glory. He will never cast us off, but
he will bring us home to glory, and we must rest in the grace
that is in the Lord Jesus. Now, to help us do that, we have
a whole series of examples in the gospel accounts where the
Lord Jesus was so gracious and kind. Think of all the people
he met. The widow of Nain, there's that
sorrowing widow on the way to the graveside to bury her son. And the Lord intercepted and
raised her son to life. And there was a woman with a
terrible burden of grief, and the Lord gave her hope, raised
her son. And a widow, of course, would
have been left perhaps totally alone. But now she had her son
returning home again. Think of the beggars, the blind
beggars that Jesus met. And while others would have said
to Bartimaeus, hush, quiet, don't disturb the master, the Lord
said, let him come to me. None were a burden to him. Jairus' daughter, the woman of
Samaria, the sinful woman that washed Jesus' feet, all of these
who came to Christ He lifted their burdens, every one of them. You cannot name in the Bible
one where the Lord refused, except perhaps for the rich young man. And the reason was that he loved
the world too much. He loved his riches too much,
and he went away sorrowful without the Savior. Now, the Lord will
give you that rest. just as he was compassionate
to everyone that came to him in his earthly life. Today, the
Lord Jesus is saying to you, come unto me. He's inviting you,
come unto me. And as you heed his invitation,
and as you come afresh to the Lord Jesus, he will receive you. Now, I say afresh because even
though we may be Christians for some time, we come again and
again. In this communion table, there
is a sense in which we are coming anew. We're coming again to the
same Lord Jesus, whose love is so infinite, so full. that he can meet with us and
that he will receive us again and again. And if you come today
and take that bread and say, Lord Jesus, you died for me,
you suffered in your body on the cross for me, and you shed
your blood for me, you can take all the sweetness, all the blessedness
of that to your own heart. Now that's necessary. That's
what faith does. That's a work of faith. This
communion table cannot be handled mechanically. It cannot be handled
empty-mindedly. You must receive it by faith. And after all, that bread doesn't
satisfy physical hunger. It's only a tiny little piece.
You're not going to get very much. And the cup, it's a small
little sip, and they are but little symbols. They are reminders
of Calvary. Jesus' body, kneeled to the cross,
his blood poured out. And you to come in faith to receive,
and that your faith will be nurtured and strengthened so that you
are more and more yoked to the Lord Jesus. That's what faith
does. Faith yokes us more and more to the Lord Jesus. Now, Jesus gives us rest because
it's an unconditional invitation. Come unto me all ye that labor
under heavy laden. There's no conditions here. There's
no restrictions, no limitations. All ye that labor. And everyone
that comes, he gives rest. So come all. Then you are told
to come with your labor. Whatever your burden is, if it
was an unsaved person, your burden of sin, bring that burden with
you. This is not a call to get rid
of the burden yourself and then come. You come with your burden. You come laden, loaded with your
burden, your problems. Come with your fears. Fears of
a life's future and death's finality, heaven or hell, and Jesus will
give you rest, assurance in your soul. Come with your failures. Now we don't have to backtrack
very far to find our failures, do we? We only have to go back
maybe through one week. What opportunities we missed.
What time we wasted. What prayerlessness perhaps.
Maybe we tried to pray and you couldn't pray. Or what time you
opened your Bible but you didn't really get much. And so we feel. We can be strong one day and
very weak the next. And so we are to come here to
the Lord Jesus with our failures. And even when we've really flaunted
it and really broken our testimony, we can still come back to the
Lord with our failures. Then come with your heartaches.
There are things that are not our fault. They would not necessarily
be our own sins, but they break our hearts. They cause us great
angst and concern, and maybe today you have a heartache. Bring it to the Lord Jesus. Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Bring that heartache. that burden of mind and soul
onto the Lord Jesus. Come with your sins. Maybe I've
covered that. Come right to the cross and say,
Lord Jesus, wash me, cleanse me, make me whole again. Then come with your weariness. Ah, do we not have to say that,
Lord Jesus? I'm weary. I've been bidden in
the Bible to be not weary in well-doing, but I am weary. My
mind is weary, my body is weary, and I come with a very weak attitude. Now, these are burdens that can
weigh heavily on you. But the Lord Jesus promises,
come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. And he says, take my yoke upon
you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And this is the only time in
the gospels where the Lord Jesus refers to his own heart. This
is his nature. He's meek. He's lowly. He will not drive you away. He
is gentle and gracious. Now, when you come to the Lord
Jesus, I give you my age old advice. You never stop looking
at yourself or your sin problems or your failures until you get
to the cross. If you stop looking at yourself
and focusing upon your own emptiness, that will defeat you. There's
no victory in yourself. You've got to come looking onto
Jesus until you get to the cross and plead the power of the victory
of the Lord Jesus at Calvary upon your own soul. Now, many commentators say that
these words and these promises were given to people who were
under the burden of Judaistic, Levitical, ceremonial worship. All the washing of cups and plates
and what to wear and how far to travel and all the commandments
that were made by men, the traditions of men. Many say the Lord Jesus was really
countering the untold burden of religiosity. That's not our
gospel. The gospel of Christ is a gospel
of liberty that sets us free from all of these things. I like
to read today Romans 5.1, therefore being justified by faith, we
have peace with God. That's liberty, that's freedom,
that's acceptance with God. And Jesus frees us from so many
things, from the alarms of conscience, the terrors of the law. He frees
us from the fear of the judgment day. How am I going to stand
before God in my rags? Well, I will have the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus. So the question, are you burdened
by sin, failure, or guilt? Do your sins cry out against
you? Do you want peace in your inner
being? Well, here is the Savior's call. Come unto me. That's not the pastor saying,
come to me. That's the Lord Jesus himself.
saying, come unto me. The pastor can only point you
to the Lord, direct you to go to him, fall at his feet, cry
to him for mercy, and he will not cast you out. He will not
leave you burdened. He will receive you and lift
those burdens and send you off rejoicing. He is indeed the good
shepherd who giveth his life for the sheep to defend them,
to save them, to keep them. And this is our Lord Jesus. Now, what about communion today?
Should you come? Does Jesus say to you today,
take the cup and take the bread in remembrance of me? Yes, he
does. He invites you in your weakness,
in your weariness perhaps, come, take, eat, drink, remember me. And he invites you to find new
strength, in the nourishment of this communion feast. It's
called the Lord's Supper because it is a spiritual feast. And we don't feast our bodies,
but we feast our souls. And we look away beyond these
little tiny symbols, and we look away to the man of Calvary, and
we see the sacrifice. And we have peace with God through
the blood and the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Now, if you say,
well, I've never asked the Lord to be my savior. No, you can't
come. If you're saying, I just can't
accept that Jesus is the mediator and the only one that can give
me peace, then you can't come. You're not bidden to come. But
if you will recognize that Jesus is the son sent by the father,
he's the savior of sinners, then you're bidding to come, come
onto me and I will give you rest and he'll bring new peace, new
grace into your soul. And when it comes to age limits,
I don't know how you, We manage that here in Australia, but in
Canada, in America, we have an age limit of 16. And that's sort
of where we say, well, when a young person is 16 and they're professing
faith in Christ and they want to participate in the Lord's
Supper, then we say, yes, that's wonderful that you want to show
your faith and eat and drink to remember the Lord Jesus. And may you be encouraged today
to come. and to participate and to enter
into this wonderful grace of the Lord Jesus. We have a hymn
349 and we'll
How can Jesus give soul rest?
| Sermon ID | 612573845671 |
| Duration | 33:45 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Matthew 11:25-30 |
| Language | English |
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