For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? Lee Austin, you know a verse came to my mind while we're just sitting here singing? The one where Jesus says, fear not little flock, it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. I would rather be in a little room with a couple of gods elect than at some big fancy party, some soiree, and there's going to be that day when the nobles of this world, the rich folks, the Elon Musks, the Bill Gates, would have wished they were here in the little flock with the elect ones. God looks down on some little flock like this, and he's not like, oh, my kingdom suffers reproach for such a small gathering. Nope. It's the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom to the little flock, to the meek in spirit, to the few that find the narrow road that leads to life. So I just wanted to share that with you guys. Small churches have Many positives. You probably all know one another. I don't know all the names over at San Antonio, where I'm coming from. But here, you probably get to know all of one another's names, so benefits to the little flock. But I just want to introduce myself a little bit. My name is Chris, Chris Howland. I'm coming to you by way of GCC San Antonio. Me and my wife, Danny, and our little daughter, Julie, and our very new addition, Joy. That's where we post up. And we moved here to San Antonio and Texas from New Jersey about four and a half years ago, and we moved for the church. We're some of those crazy people who visited the church or watched them on the internet and were like, let's move. Let's do it. And the encouraging thing about what Why I'm sharing just part of that is because we came there just when Tim was right about to leave. And so we could have been widely discouraged by that, like, oh, this senior pastor, this man with this impressive gift and this preaching ability just warms and fires up the soul, his zeal, his passion. We could have been like, ah, man, he's gone. But you know what I realized in the absence of that explosive spiritual gift of Tim's preaching ministry. When he left, it was still the Lord's church. The church was not built on one man's gifting, one man's teaching, one man's presence. He left, Tim Conway left GCC to go pastor over in Manchester, and the church was just fine because it's the Lord Jesus that builds his church. So I thought that was very encouraging, and I thought it's encouraging for you folks for not having a senior pastor at the moment. It's like, this is the Lord's elect. This is the Lord's little flock. He's going to build up his people. He's going to do what he's got to do. He's going to raise up gifts, stir up gifts. I'm sure the people that are preaching, it's like, wow, they wouldn't have risen to the occasion, had it not been for just that providential opportunity that the Lord saw fit to use to stir things up in different people. And so praise God for just the way he's faithful to build up his church. But that's just a little bit about me coming from San Antonio. I was saved about 19 years old. I'm about to be 38. And so coming up on almost my 20-year anniversary or 20-year birthday of just walking with the Lord, and oh boy, I feel like I ought to know more by now and be more mature by now. And I praise God for the text that we're going to be looking at this morning. I praise God that He's a gentle and lowly Savior, that He's so patient with really slow learners like myself, and perhaps some of you would confess to say, yeah, I'm a pretty slow learner too. I thought I might have been more sanctified, have more scripture knowledge, have more victory over certain sins. But praise God that He is indeed a gentle, lowly Savior. But that's enough about me by way of introduction. Let's open our Bibles to Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30. Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30. Just three verses, but these are very, very well-known and very, very precious verses from the lips of Jesus, and they are timeless, and they're coming to us, and we gotta give our good attention to the words of Jesus this morning. So let's just read our text and then pray. Matthew 11, 28 through 30, Jesus speaking. 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. Let's pray. Oh, heavenly Father, thank you that we can draw near to you through your son. Lord, you're so holy. Hallowed be thy name. You are holy. We pray that your name be hallowed here as we gather in your name. Lord, your little flock is here. Your sheep are here. And we need spiritual food. We desire, Lord, these people didn't come to hear a person talk. They want you to talk. Lord Jesus, minister. Words of comfort, words of conviction, whatever is needful for the hour, would you take your word and do what you do in the foolishness of preaching, just a little man talking, and yet somewhere from my lips to the people's ears, if your word and your spirit are present, you can minister to souls and refresh them and feed them. Lord Jesus, do what you do. For the glory of your name and the good of your people, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. So Matthew 11, 28, and 30, the come-to-me verses. It's very, very precious, very, very familiar verses. I hope they're not over-familiar, and I hope that the Lord warms them to our hearts afresh if we've maybe thought, I already know that already. Stay with me. This is good stuff. So just a helicopter kind of view of where we're going with this verse. I mean, it's all right there in the text. You've got the problem that we have. Just wait. Weight, heavy laden. Jesus' audience then, Jesus' audience now, got weights that they're carrying on their shoulders which are heavy. So that's the problem, you see that in verse 28. Heavy laden, laboring, lacking rest. The remedy that he offers, you see, in verse 29 and 30, it's take my yoke. Come to me, take my yoke. Then we got the result we experience. It's in verses 28 and 29. It's two times. It says, rest. Then he says, rest for your soul. Rest on a soul level, deep rest. That's the result we experience when we come to him, when he gives us the remedy for our problems. And then he gives us two for statements, and those are the reasons, the reasons he provides. Two for statements in verses 29 and 30. You got four, I am gentle and lowly in heart, and four, my yoke is easy. So that's kind of just a quick helicopter view of where we're going with these verses. But verse 28, let's just take it real, real slow, real simple. Come to me. Come to me. What's it mean? What do you guys think? Participation welcomed. What's it mean to come to Jesus? You probably hear that a lot, like, oh, I came to Jesus when I was X years old, or what's it mean to come to Jesus, to come to him? Trusting him. What'd you say, brother? Believe in Him, yeah, absolutely tied to it is believing in Him. But the little answer I scribbled down here is just the fact that, or typed down here, it's more than coming on a superficial level. Because plenty of people, if we read Scripture, we see plenty of people, they came to Him, but they didn't stay with Him. They came at a superficial level. The rich young ruler came, left. Judas came to him, and he stayed for a while. He did. He came to Jesus. You could say that Judas came to Jesus, but inwardly, he wasn't fully there, right? He came, but he wasn't fully there at a heart level. And then, of course, the crap multitudes could have been said to have come to Jesus. They came to him for bread. They came to him for healing. It was almost a spectacle to them, to some degree. They were desperate. They wanted something. And many of them did come to him. And, I mean, you remember the account of all the blind men that were healed by him and how many came back. Some came to him, got healed, disappeared. And then one came back with adoration and worship and thanksgiving. The rest just came and went. So we know that coming to Jesus has to be something more than at the superficial level. That was true in Jesus's day. It's true in our day. Lots of people Today, lots of people in this city, lots of people that we love and are close to, you could probably think in your minds, they have a superficial coming to Jesus. They've come to church, perhaps, they've come to some Bible reading and Bible knowledge, they've come to good morals, they've jettisoned some bad behaviors, but they've not actually come savingly to Jesus. And these are people that you and I know. This represents horrific multitudes in America because of easy believinism and a low entry point for church membership and a cheap, small gospel where so many people come and they think I'm good, but they're not. Jesus chillingly quotes Isaiah and says these words. He says, draw near to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips. They draw near to him. They draw near to God, but it's just with mouths. Honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Lips near, but hearts far. I've got names of family members in my mind that that fits. They will acknowledge Jesus. They perhaps think, I have come to Jesus. I know those scriptures. This is one of the hardest parts about evangelizing. We go downtown in San Antonio by the Riverwalk and do evangelism, and everyone thinks they've come to Jesus. Everyone thinks that they know him. Everyone thinks, I'm good. So many people. I mean, I almost welcome someone who's just honest and like sort of a scoffer because at least they're being real. But the self-deception of just so much exposure to gospel truth and people thinking, I have come. Why do I need to do that? One and done, right? So it's a scary thing. Have people really come to him? So many they haven't. It's been a superficial coming. But that's not something that just affects false converts and like cultural Christians and stuff in the Bible Belt. It's actually an issue that genuine Christians can sort of subtly drift into, into this place where you're coming to like a whole bunch of Jesus-adjacent stuff. You have a bunch of church stuff that you're doing, you're doing the kind of religious routine of Bible reading and prayer. And it's subtle. I'm not saying that there's like this deep hypocrisy where you're just doing it and then going out and leading a double life. But there's a sense in which even genuine Christians, real converted people, are coming to Jesus in a sense, but they're coming like at a distance or they're coming to Jesus adjacent stuff. And they're not coming to Jesus in this felt intimate union, the kind that Jesus actually wants when he's saying, come to me. So that's just our first come to me statement. And I would ask, is this a good evangelism verse? You better believe it. I love this verse. This is absolutely an evangelism verse. But is it limited to an evangelism verse? No way. This verse is for Christians to practice for their entire lives. It's continual. In a sense, this is what the Christian life is. It's coming to Jesus initially at conversion and just coming to him over and over again. Like a marriage. I mean, you don't come to your wife to get married. You keep on fellowshipping, you keep coming together, you keep on getting to know each other, you keep deepening that relationship. And so, this is part of the coming to Jesus. The depth of it. It says, And they're heavy laden, and that's where we get our problem, the way Jesus is addressing it, the problem. And he knows his audience. He knows what human nature is like. He knows our frailty. I love that verse. My mom loves it, too. He knows our frame, that we are but dust. He knows how weak we are. He knows how heavy stuff weighs on us. So he's addressing his audience with perfect words. And he's the perfect fisher of men, right? I get the sense that he's casting this net, and it's a net that sort of filters out the proud in heart and the self-reliant in heart. Because a self-reliant, proud man is going to hear, come to me, you who are heavy laden and you who labor, and a proud man's just going to be like, that's not me. I'm doing just fine. I carry my own loads easy breezy. I'm not struggling like you weak Christians. How many times have you heard the argument made that religion is just a crutch for weak people to cope with their problems? You guys heard that argument before? just a crutch to that I would gladly in humility say you better believe that the Lord Jesus not religion the Lord Jesus helps me support what I cannot support in my weak creaturely frame and Jesus in saying all who are labor and heavy laden is sort of He's like filtering people out. It's like proud people are not going to respond to that. They're going to pass right by that. But there's another group of people, those who are meek and poor in spirit, who are going to hear, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden. And their ears are going to perk up. And they're going to say, that's me. I need relief. This is too heavy on my shoulders. So Jesus is addressing people who are heavy laden. But heavy laden with what specifically? The problem is people are heavy laden, they got these weights on them. What do you think these weights are? I thought of three specifically, but what do you guys think? Heavy laden with dot, dot, dot, what? Sin, absolutely. Fear. Chris is an MVP right now. Someone else. Burn it. What do you bear? What's on your shoulders that makes your heart feel heavy other than sin and fear? Say it again. Say it again louder. Helpless yet feeling weakness right where you feel like you can't do it by yourself. Absolutely So the three that came to my mind which are you guys are right on the money really? The first one is just sin the the weight of sin the burden of a guilty conscience from that that failure to be Righteous. I love what's the word conscience mean con? science with knowledge. You know that you've fallen short. You know that there's God's, God's given you this like alarm system in your mind that goes off and people try to suppress the truth and unrighteousness and pull the batteries out of the alarm system that God gave them that warns them, you're doing something wrong. I mean, I remember as a lost man feeling the shame of sexual sin and just, I guess, pulling the batteries out and hardening, hardening, hardening. It's a tragic thing. But sin and the guilty conscience, that's a weight, that's one of the weights. We read in Psalm 38, 3 and 4, you know, got to turn there, but it talks about sin being like a burden. So it says, there is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head like a heavy burden. They're too heavy for me. Then verse 8 says, I am feeble. That's helpless. I'm feeble and crushed. I've grown because of the tumult of my heart. So that's burden number one. It's just sin, the guilty conscience that comes from sin. One of the heavy-laden problems that Jesus is addressing, certainly. But then, the second burden that I thought of was the burden of the Pharisees, or you could put it like this, the burden of a performance-based religion. Let me read some verses to give it that more clarity. The burden of performance-based religion. This is Matthew 23 verses 1 through 4. It says, Now verse 4 of Matthew 23. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. So this is shoulder-crushing, back-breaking legalism. Burdensome, performance-based religion. They made the requirements so heavy that they look at the Word made flesh, they look at Jesus, and he didn't even measure up in the mind of the Pharisees. This is how heavy their brand of adhering to the law was, they look at Jesus, who has no sin at all, and they say, He's sinning. Look at Him. Listen to how nitpicky they are. You don't have to go even too far to see this. Matthew 11 is where we're at, and then in Matthew 12, you see they're pouncing on people for plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath. They're criticizing them. They're pointing the finger at them like, Can you imagine how burdensome that would have been to live in that kind of religious cultural context, where you're sincerely trying to just measure up to the standard of righteousness that's kind of popular and around you, and you've got these Pharisees walking around, and they're just so hypercritical. They see you plucking heads of grain, and they're like, you're working. you're sinning, you're falling short of God's standard. They're doing that to Jesus' disciples. And then Jesus is healing a man with a withered hand. He's doing something good, and it's not even work for him. This is the Lord. And they look at him and says, you're healing on the Sabbath. They're trying to catch him in that as though he had committed some kind of grievous infraction for healing on the Sabbath. This is burdensome religion that these guys are enforcing around them and people respect them so this kind of thing flies and the people are probably just battered in their conscience and battered with trying to measure up this performance-based religion. This is the religious culture that Jesus' audience was living in, just unbearable burdens and yokes from the Pharisees. And even after the resurrection, you see this just real quick again in Acts 15.10, Peter's addressing the Jerusalem council, and there's some Pharisees present there. And he says, now, therefore, Peter speaking to the Pharisees, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? Unbearable. So that's the second burden that people are carrying. First one's just sin, the guilt of conscience. Next one is something that exacerbates that guilty conscience is this performance-based religion where you're just trying and trying and trying. You can never measure up to it. And then the third one is just so universal and so timeless and it's just the burden of cares or anxieties or worries. Proverbs 12, 25 says, anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down. But a good word makes him glad. Jesus is coming with a good word when he's telling people to come to me and rest. But just cares, just the normal cares of life. can be burdensome, Jesus knows that. He says, addresses this whole thing in Matthew 6, 25 and 27, I won't read all of it, but there's just a couple of things that he addresses that sound so common, but these are genuine sources of anxiety. In Matthew 6, 25, he says, therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is life not more than food? and the body more than clothing? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? And then verse 34 in Matthew 6 says, therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient for the day is its own trouble. So just cares, food, drink, clothing, the future, these are things that can weigh on a person's heart. I'm sure all of you have felt financial pressure and pressure for the future. What's life going to look like? What's my family? Are my kids going to get saved as my lost cousin never gonna get his act together, there's just these cares. Food, drink, clothing, the future, people you love, just cares. But we've got weights. I'm sure we could relate to lots of these weights, the sin weight, the performance-based religion weight, and just the normal cares of life. But Jesus comes in with the remedy, the remedy for this problem of weights. In verse 29 and 30, it says, take my yoke. And he says, my yoke is easy. So what comes to your mind when you think of a yoke, Y-O-K-E? Yolk. Chris is about to be the MVP. I already see him smiling, gearing up. Yolk. Was it? Struggle of pulling. Struggle of pulling. Yeah, you think of like animals being under a yolk and like a yolk of oxen just pulling these sheep. Oxen are like gnarly, strong beasts of burden. And they're just, it's like what their shoulders are made for. Animals, that comes to mind, being under a heavy burden, beasts of burden, animals working, anything else come to mind? Scriptural things where you could think of the way yoke is used to describe dot, dot, dot, blank. A pairing, a pairing, a pairing. How so is pairing, like non-animal pairing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the preeminent one in my mind. But then there's also definitely the one of slavery, like the Egyptians had the Israelites under a yoke of slavery. So some of these, the animal one and the slavery one, have this negative connotation. And without a doubt, yoke has a submission element. But depending on who you're submitting to, I mean, Islam means submission. Depending on who you're submitting to, it's either going to be harsh submission or it's going to be light, less burdensome submission. And so Jesus is saying, My yoke, my yoke is easy. And I think for enhanced clarity on this yoke thing, which I think we have a pretty good idea of it already, but 2 Corinthians 6, 14 through 16 gives us lots of words that help us see what this yoke thing is. 2 Corinthians 6, 14, and it's talking about the negative sense, but it explains it in a good way. So 2 Corinthians 6, 14, 16 says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? So that verse really gives us, I mean, five words. It's being yoked as partnership with Jesus, fellowship with Jesus, accord with Jesus, a portion with Jesus, and agreement with Jesus. So what's his yoke like? It's not like the Pharisees' yoke. He says it's easy. That's an almost contradictory statement. It sounds weird. My yoke is easy. It's like saying my slavery is freedom. Like it's a little bit like incompatible it sounds like, but he's saying that his yoke is easy. It's not a yoke of slavery. It's a yoke of union with someone who's gentle and lowly and wants to give you rest. He's not a harsh Burden layer like those Pharisees who don't even lift their finger to help but he's going to make it feel light because he's going to in union with you Carry the heaviness and make it feel light So partnership and fellowship and accord and portion and agreement with Jesus. His yoke is easy and bearable and freeing. Galatians 5, 1 says, for freedom Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. So it's a freeing yoke. It says Christ has set us free. He's saying take my yoke upon you. What he's saying, don't go back to slavery. So this is a freeing yoke. It's not a slavish yoke. Many people stay away from Jesus because they perceive the yoke of Christ as a slavish, dutiful, hard thing. They're losing out on all their fun, all their liberties. They feel like it's going to be some constraining thing. It's going to cramp their style. But it's not. It's for freedom that Christ sets us free. It is an absolutely liberating thing to be yoked to Christ. So why is Christ's yoke easy? I mean, doesn't he say the road is narrow that leads to life and it's difficult? I feel like we're getting mixed signals here, Jesus. Which one is it? Your yoke is easy or it's really hard to follow you? I'm not too bothered by that tension. I feel like that tension is resolved in a simpler way of saying like, yeah, the challenges of the Christian life are real and undeniable, but the ease comes from the companionship that you have with him in all of it. He's with us bearing the load, and that can make the hardest stuff feel, like Paul said, and momentary. Paul was just absolutely battered, and he's saying, oh, this is, you know, I do, I bear the anxieties of the churches, and I've suffered probably more than all of y'all, Paul speaking, and he's saying, but I do count it as light. He knows the companionship of Christ. He knows that in his weakness, Christ's strength is made perfect. And so this yoke is easy, not because life is going to be a breeze. It's going to be hard. Through many tribulations, we enter the kingdom. And yet, he's with us. You guys sing that song? Lord of hosts, you're with us, with us in the fire. It's true. You ever hear the story of Perpetua was like a early martyr. At least she gets mauled by animals. Before all that, she's in prison. Richard Wurmbrand quotes her as a also persecuted Christian who is enduring a prison sentence. He quotes how Perpetua said, her prison became to her as a palace. And that's not fanciful, poetic stuff. That's real for Christians who go through suffering. He can make suffering feel light. Please, someone raise your hand and just glorify God and say, I know what that feels like. A wife, you know what it feels like. We know, we have experienced some of the most intense lightness and joy and felt closeness and comfort of the Lord. Right after, literally, we had a miscarriage. Our third miscarriage. And this one, we had access to our baby's body. And we bury our baby's body in our backyard. And after this, the Lord just overshadows us with peace that surpasses understanding. We should not have felt peace that evening, y'all. We should have been wrecked. And we did. He let us feel wrecked for a little bit. And then, just to give that beautiful contrast to here's what suffering feels like when I'm not close, and here's what suffering feels like when I've drawn close to you. I'm not exaggerating. Joy, joy, lightness, peace in the middle of suffering. God can do that. He can really do that. His yoke is easy, even though through many tribulations we enter the kingdom. But it's also easy just compared to the impossible alternative, which is Be perfect on your own. Live without his help. Carry your load by yourself. Trust in the arm of the flesh. That's most religions. That's most secular humanism. It's you can do anything that you put your mind to. That sounds kind of empowering. That sounds kind of nice. And then you got Jesus saying, apart from me, you can do nothing. One of those sounds empowering, the other one doesn't sound so empowering, but one's true, and one's a lie. But the alternative to being yoked to Jesus is just bearing your own burden, manning up, being self-reliant, trusting in the arm of the flesh. In Jeremiah 6.16, thus says the Lord, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it and find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk in it. Got the Lord telling people, I want to give you rest for your souls. This is as far back as Jeremiah's day. The prophetic voice going out to the people Walk, walk in the good path and you're going to find rest for your souls. And people just in stiff-necked, proud self-reliance say, no, we don't want to. That's heartbreaking. But why do so many people refuse to take Jesus' yoke upon them? What would make someone refuse such an offer of help? Again, I'll leave it, what would make someone refuse to take such a kind offer of bearing the burden It's just pride. It's delusional pride. It's a pride that makes someone think, I've got this. I don't need help. I'm good. I can't tell you how many times during evangelism on Friday nights, the response to handing a tract or the response to, hey, can I talk to you about Jesus or whatever, people just say, I'm good. You just wish you could show them behind the scene and let them see how hovering over their head is the wrath of God. Beneath their feet is a lake of fire that burns forever. And they just walk past you, and you're given the golden ticket to eternal life, and it's free. And they say, I'm good. It's one of the most emotionally burdensome things about evangelizing. So many people are just Jeremiah 6.16. You offer them rest and peace and life, and they say, I'm good. No thanks. We will not walk in it. It's pride, it's delusional pride. But for the poor in spirit, the one who feels crushed. and weak under the weight of sin and the cares of life, they're going to forsake their trust in that arm of the flesh and they're going to go find the rest that Jesus offers. And this is not just for lost people. This came home to my own soul with such a a conviction and a comfort, but just exposing, as I read this and meditated on this in preparation, it's just my own self-reliance as a Christian. It's so easy to just drift into that, especially as a man, but really anybody. I mean, it's just the water we swim in is like humanistic, you can do it, man up, just get it done, don't be weak. Just do it. It's not that hard. But the truth is, I feel like the more you get mature as a Christian, the more you feel pitiful and helpless, and you're okay with it, and you just pray about everything. You don't just pray about the hard stuff. Everything becomes a point where you say, yeah, I need to pray about that. Jesus, I would like you to help me carry that. And in one sense, it's humbling and humiliating, but in the other sense, it's good because you go and you avail yourself of what Jesus makes available to you, which is the restfulness. Self-reliance is just an absolute recipe for burnout and stress and unrest in soul and just feeling like you're gonna collapse under the weight of even simple stuff, just cares. drink, food, tomorrow, clothing, simple kind of things can be crushing. But what a relief when you just go and take Jesus's yoke and forsake your self-reliance. And so this is definitely not just aimed at like proud unconverted people, but even Christians just face this subtle drift to self-reliance, myself included. But verses 28 and 29, we've got the result. It says, I will give you rest. You will find rest. And so I like questions. Questions kind of engage the mind. What's this rest look like? What does the rest look like that Jesus is offering? Is it kind of let go and let God? I think you know the answer to that. It's not like going like God. Is it cessation from work? Rest. He's contrasting those who labor in heavy laden and come to me, I'll give you rest. Is it just kind of a passive floating on a little kayak or circly tube down a lazy river? It's not that. It's definitely not that. Rest does not mean cessation from work, but it means working from a trusting place, from a Christ-reliant instead of self-reliant place. So listen to this. I love this. This is so good. Colossians 1.29. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. So yeah, there's a toil and there is a struggle, but it's spiritually energized by felt union with Jesus. Again, this is not just poetic language, it's real. The writer knows I am toiling and I am struggling, but it's not me. It's not me alone. It is the energy that Christ provides powerfully working within me, and that can make hard work feel light. I'll just give a personal example here. Sermon prep for me, especially as a somewhat newbie preacher, it can feel like such hard work. It can feel like My wife gave me such good counsel the other day. I was just stressing. I'm like, I don't feel ready. I don't feel ready. She's like, why don't you take a nap? I'm like, I can't. I need to just do it. I just need to plow through. I just need to get ready. She's like, yeah, why don't you just take a nap? And I did. And it was so wonderful. What a humbling, biological, little thing that human beings literally can't be awake for too long without having to power down and recharge. But that nap, it made all the difference. And it wasn't just a nap. It was resting from my own self-reliance and just trusting, God, I don't need to blast through and just try to make this thing work. I can take a nap and trust you. But it's toiling with the energy he provides, not just trying to generate self-reliant effort and toil and struggle, because that is absolutely a recipe for just total burnout. But again, the same thing reiterated in Philippians 2.13. It says, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So he's not trying to rescue us from labor. He's trying to rescue us from self-reliant. labor. It's soul rest. It's not hand rest, because we know our hands are going to be full. We have so much that we need to be good stewards of. We have just a little time here on this earth to make use of whatever time and talents and gifts and stuff that he's given us, families, work, spiritual gifts. So we're definitely not just resting our hands. We're doing lots of stuff, but we're doing that stuff with the energy that he provides. Excuse me. You with me? Nodded heads. It's so much quieter here than in the GCC San Antonio. It's so crazy. I love it though. Anyway, where are we? So yeah, rest isn't workless or weightless. The yoke of the Pharisees and performance-based religion is basically just do better, try harder, perform better. It's performance-based religion. But sadly, that's not an issue that was just sectioned off in the past. And with the Pharisees, it really does touch the Christian, especially the American Christian, just this drift towards self-reliance. I don't know if you guys have heard this Paul Washer account where he talks about this visiting, I think, Chinese missionary who visits the United States. And the impression, the flavor left in his mouth was, I'm amazed by how much you guys can do without God. He just perceived that so much of what was happening within churches and Christians and just American culture was, we're just going to do this thing. We're just going to make it happen. Godless self-reliance. That was his impression. Oh, Christians. Christians can slink down into operating at this level. But there's a rest, there's a rest, there's a rest that's supposed to mark us. And when a sense of unrest is lingering inside us, that can be like a check engine light, prompting us to ask, am I trying to bear this on my own? My old pastor back in New Jersey used to say that about joy, but I think it carries over to rest as well. He says, if you're lacking joy, if joy is missing for any sustained period of time, And that's like a check engine light, spiritually. You need not be content with that. And same thing with, if there's just low-grade anxiety and unrest, which so many young people in America today will say, anxiety, depression, anxiety, depression. That is not God's will. And even more grown people, adults, just anxiety, depression, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. unrest, lack of peace and settledness and contentment and ease and lightness. We're supposed to be marked as Christians, as people of rest and lightness. That looks good in an anxious culture. That looks God-glorifying in an anxious culture. So if Christians have any lingering sense of unrest in any area, that's like a check engine light to prompt us to ask, am I trying to bear this particular thing on my own? But verse 29, he says, learn of me for I am Gentile. That's our four statement number one, reason, because, why, why come to him, why yoke to him. He said, I'm different than those Pharisees. I'm different than what you're thinking. I'm gentle and lowly, meek and humble. That deserves its own entire sermon. I almost wanted to break that down more. But the fact that God is humble is absolutely mind-blowing. We got a newborn over there. When Tim was back here for a brief time, we sang, in the middle of July, we sang during worship time, Hark the Herald Angels Sing Glory to the Newborn King. And we're singing that song in July, because Tim likes it. I'm guessing he asked our piano player to play that, because he just likes that song. But my little newborn daughter, Glory to the newborn king and just profound condescension. If Jesus didn't die for sins, the incarnation on its own merits would be astounding that God became a man. He's humble. God is humble and lowly. But he says, learn of me, for I'm gentle. He's a gentle teacher. He's very sensitive about our weakness and our frame, and we're such slow learners. He says, learn of me. And we're really slow to learn. Nearly 20 years as a Christian, and I'm still trying to be like, all right, yeah, I can't do it, Lord. I need to go to you for help. But we're so slow learners. We learn to trust him with our weights, and then we drift back in self-reliance. We find rest in him at one time and then we lose that rest and it feels like we're striving and stressed again somehow. We lay a burden down and then we pick it back up again and say, all right, I got to do it. We'll learn a lesson and then we'll forget it and have to relearn it again or remember it afresh. We'll walk closely, yoked with Jesus, in humble reliance on him, and then we'll get all self-reliant and mature and try to walk on our own and just fall on our face. And I'm sure plenty of you can point to different times where you just took such a spill, you made a bad decision, a sin, a lapse in wisdom. You just did something too quick, without relying on Him, without praying, maybe without fasting, maybe just, just a, you took a fall. But even in those falls, I mean, God's so gentle with us. He's so patient with us. He's so, He's, He says He's gentle and lowly. We're yoked to Him. He's not like some raging bull who's just irritated with us and our pace. Irritated, why haven't you learned yet? You see, I love that the disciples were so thick-headed and so missing it because it shows. He's not just saying, I'm gentle. He's demonstrating it over and over again with just normal men, normal stubborn fishermen. Lord, should we call down fire? I just picture him doing a face palm, being like, You don't know what spirit you are of. No, you're not going to call down fire. Cutting off Malchus's ear when Jesus is being arrested and Jesus just heals, heals the ear. We're just so dense. We're such slow learners and yet Christ is so gentle and so good with Leading us along at the pace that he knows we he knows we don't get sanctified in like one year It takes us so long to learn such things and we have to relearn them over and over again are We're so dull even even with the Spirit of God living inside us is regenerated born-again people. We have such it a Weakness of flesh that makes it hard to hold on to things that we've learned even 10 20 30 times It's embarrassing but God is Praise God, he is gentle and lowly. But our fourth statement, number two, is just for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I just ask, just in the quiet of your own heart, does your Christian life feel easy? Does it feel like it's light? Does it feel like there's a mark of a sense of, wow, he's really He's really helping me. I feel it on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis. Yes, there's seasons of dips and lulls, but by and large, my Christian life feels so supported by this yoked union of help and burden bearing with Jesus. I hope it does feel easy. I hope it hasn't felt just really hard and heavy, but it can. It can. I think the devil's great at this because he's just trying to malign the character of God. Jesus comes and he's revealing himself. He's saying, I'm gentle and lowly in heart. actually how I am. I'm not putting on pretense. From my heart, I'm gentle and lowly with you. You're gonna find rest." And then the devil just wants to tilt this whole thing and twist this whole thing and make us think Jesus is harsh. Christianity is too hard. All of this is way too heavy. You can't do it. He's not willing to help. It's just slandering the character of God to us. I mean, in 2 Corinthians 4, what's that, where he's saying the God of the sages blind the minds or the eyes of the unbelievers so they don't see like the glory of God in the face of Jesus. And I think his modus operandi, his game plan, even for believers, is just to make you think low, low, harsh thoughts of Jesus, like, oh, you sin, and Jesus is just so angry. Isn't it interesting how the devil is designated as the accuser of the brethren? I don't get the sense that the devil's walking around accusing lost people, but the brethren is just railing at them, slandering us to God and slandering God to us, bringing up our sins to God and bringing up perceived wrongness in God's character to us, telling us, whispering things that Jesus isn't gentle and lowly, Christianity isn't easy and light. On Jesus's word, yes it is. Being yoked to him makes the Christian walk actually light, even when stuff is crazy and hard. Where am I? Yeah, but I mean, that's what this is all about, y'all. This is about actual, felt, close union with Jesus. Repetition helps us in finding the emphasis and thrust of a text, and there's a seven-fold repetition here in this text. You could see it. It says, come to me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. I am gentle and lowly heart. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. There's two me's, two I's, three my's, seven just beckonings, pointing to this thing rests on Him. He's going to do it. Christian, you can rest from the self-reliance. You can rest from the trying to be good enough and measure up and be sanctified. you can take heart in your slow sanctification. Paul Washer made some remark about that. He's like, I really thought that I was going to be further along by now. And that's Paul Washer we're talking about. So all of us, the best of men is a man at best. We're all just so we can be very slow in our journey of sanctification. But rest assured, Christ is at work in us to will and work according to his good pleasure. He really is forming Christlikeness in us. Look at yourself five years ago, three years ago, two years ago, and Lord willing, you can say, stuff is changing. It's funny, you look at yourself in the mirror from day to day and nothing looks too different, but you look at a picture of yourself from two, three years ago, you're like, oh, snap, stuff is different, except for in the degenerative fashion, usually. But your spiritual reflection, two, three, five years, you're looking, you're saying, wow, Lord, you're growing me in grace. You really are bringing me along, even if it feels very, very slow. It is happening, so take heart, Christians. But just ending application here, How do we get these weights off our shoulders? How do we find rest? We just forsake self-reliance and rely on God, and we do that practically by having a living prayer life where we pray about literally everything. I love that song. Are we weak and heavy laden, Cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge, Take it to the Lord in prayer. It's, how many times have you gone to a Wednesday prayer meeting feeling just like, okay, I'm here, it's late, and then you walk out that door, you barely dragged yourself in, and you walk and you feel like a hot air balloon. You just feel like, Lord, I'm so glad I came. Many times Wednesday prayer meeting is that, or just private devotions. You pull up and it's just another day, another reading of the Bible chapter, and sometimes he meets with you in a really felt way, and sometimes it's just like, what did I even read? But there's enough times in the track record of experience where it urges you on forward. He met with me. He made it feel light. He lifted me up. So go to the Lord in prayer, Psalm 55, 22, cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. 1 Peter 5, 6 and 7 says, humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. all your anxieties, nothing is too small to pray about. It's so wonderfully inviting, casting all your anxieties on him. Why? The four statement, because he's gentle and lowly, because he cares about you, because he actually is listening to little old kids while he upholds all creation by the word of his power, big old galaxy swirling about, and then little old elect you comes to him and says, Lord, what am I going to do? There's a leak in my roof. Listening. He cares. If you care about it, He cares about hearing you pray about it, if it's weighing on you. So cast your burdens on the Lord in prayer. Philippians 4, 6, and 7. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I love that other hymn, Stayed Upon Jehovah. I forget the next line, but it says, perfect peace and rest. Perfect peace and rest. We set our minds on him. He'll guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Just a concluding question is, is there any area within your Christian life, within just your life in general, where you don't feel at rest, where there's an unsettledness, where there's a worry? Maybe it's within your parenting, within your work, within your spiritual progress, some kind of sin issue. You just don't feel rest. One real practical, kind of scary way to pray and go to God is like David did in Psalm 139. You could make inquiry to Lord in sincerity to highlight any areas where you might be laboring from your own resources, in your own strength. You could pray like David does, Psalm 139, 23, 24. He says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. I actually don't like that translation. Other translations say, try me and know my anxious thoughts or anxieties. Search me, know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. You ever thought about having anxiety in your heart as being something grievous to God? That's kind of a check. It's like when I'm anxious about something, I'm demonstrating a lack of trust. I'll just give a quick illustration. You can imagine parents here, or just imagine hypothetically, imagine your children just being lavished in your provision, your care. food every day, security cameras in the house. Dad's, you know, just strong protector. Mama's just every, every day, just showering with love. And the kid is walking around in the household in just a state of panic and unrest and worry. And they're always looking over their shoulders and they're worried about things. And they, they just feel like, do mom and dad really have my back? Are they going to take care of me? how crushing and heartbreaking that would be for a parent, A, just to see their kid in that state. You're doing everything for them to feel safe, for them to feel cared for, to feel loved on, and they're just, you can't console them, it seems like, and also how heartbreaking to feel that lack of trust coming from them, when you've done nothing but shower them in what they need. How then do you think God would feel when we worry ourselves into exhaustion, when he cares for us so, so much? He's offering rest and a yoke of fellowship with him and union and nearness with him. And it's a yoke we need to cherish and remain in, because His yoke is where the rest is really found. So if you're maybe a tired Christian, then you could hear Jesus call this morning, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. This is a guarantee from the Savior. Don't settle for unrest or anxiety in any area of your life. Don't say, oh, that's just work stuff. Obviously, it's going to be stressful. Get rest from God. He says, I'll give you rest. I will. Take my yoke upon you, union with him, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke. Walk in this Christian life, yoke to Jesus Christ. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, searcher of hearts, You don't want us walking around in a state of unrest. You're our sympathetic high priest who ever lives to make intercession for us. Lord Jesus, would you please, in whatever way you see fit by the power of your spirit, apply this to the hearts of your people and grant Rest, Lord, real rest to your little flock and all its individual members, Lord God. For those who are outside of you, Lord, for those who don't know you, for those who still have yet to feel the peace that surpasses understanding, would you let them hear your call for the first time this morning and understand that Christianity, Christ Jesus, not burdens them. restful, light, easy. Lord, draw lost ones to Yourself, and Lord, draw saved ones to Yourself afresh with just a fresh ministering of rest to the souls of Your people. Lord, we love You. We thank You for who You are. We pray that You bless us as we partake of the elements, Lord, and we just thank You for this time looking at Your Word. In Jesus' name we do pray. Amen.