Matthew 11:28-29

Rest for the soul

Well, as Ben said, if you turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 11, Matthew chapter 11, we'll be in verses 28 and 29. And as you're turning there, I just want to say this is one of the most beautiful texts, one of the most desirable texts I can think of in all of scripture. I know, I'm sure many pillows have had this verse stitched onto it. Maybe many coffee mugs have had it imprinted on it. It's a beautiful passage and we love it, but it's also a difficult passage, not because it's difficult to understand, but because it can be difficult to experience in our daily lives what Jesus is promising us here in this passage. Tonight we're gonna be looking at why that is. Why is it difficult to feel at rest in following him? So let's listen closely as we read Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 and 29. This is God's word.

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.

Rest for the soul from a gentle and lowly Savior. If you're born again, in some sort of capacity, you've already experienced that when you were saved. But I can also guarantee if you were born again, you desire more of what Jesus is offering here to us. You desire more of experiencing the rest that he promises. And so why don't we experience this rest more often as we follow him? Well, what I want to submit to you tonight is there's nothing faulty, there's nothing wrong in the invitation Jesus gives. What must be wrong is there's ways in which we fail to come to him. That's where the issue is. So a little roadmap for where we're going tonight. All I'm gonna do, I'm gonna lay out two ways from this passage Jesus shows us how to come to him for rest for our souls. And I hope as we learn these things, we can experience more of the rest he offers in our daily life. So point number one, this is the first way that Jesus tells us how to come to him for rest, and it's this. Lay down the burden of self-righteousness. He says there in verse 28,

come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Now there's two different ways within this, in this passage, that Jesus is pointing out self-righteousness as the thing you need to lay down. The first one, if you look with me in verse 28, at the word heavy-laden. Jesus says, all who labor and are heavy-laden. That word heavy-laden there, it's very related, if you look down at verse 30, to the word burden. These are related words, and the only other times we see these words in the Gospels are in Matthew and in Luke, and each time it's coming from the mouth of Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for loading all of these self-righteous, all of these legalistic burdens on people that they themselves are not even willing to bear. And so as Jesus talks about these people who labor and are heavy laden, he's speaking of people who can't find any rest because they are under a legalistic, self-righteous system. And so they cannot find rest for their souls. They're bound in this system of self-righteousness. The other way we see Jesus calling us to lay down our self-righteousness is actually the passage immediately following our passage. In chapter 12, verses one through eight, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for turning the day of rest, the Sabbath, into legalistic labor. And so it's no coincidence that in our passage, Jesus calls himself rest, and immediately afterwards, he rebukes the Pharisees for making the day of rest a day of legalistic work and labor and toil. And at the end of that passage, He says the Pharisees condemned the guiltless, and that people need to turn to Christ, who is Lord of the Sabbath, Lord of rest. And so we see clearly here in these two different ways, Jesus is offering himself as a restful alternative to something that every human heart in some way or another tries to turn to at some point, and that's self-righteousness, seeking to try to get God in our debt by what we do, and trying to get rest for our souls in that way. Jesus is saying, don't go follow after that. Don't go follow after the self-righteousness. You will not find rest. You will only find rest if you come to me. Now, believer, you know if you're a believer, you're saved by faith alone. You know that. And yet, you should also know Satan and our own hearts are very, very crafty, aren't they? And our hearts can turn even a desire to please God and kill sin in our lives, our hearts can turn that into starting to get into all sorts of ways of self-righteousness. Our heart can turn that into binding our consciences with things way outside of what God's word tells us to do. our hearts can turn in on themselves and turn a desire for godliness into self-righteousness. And we need to be very, very careful of this, because what we need to realize, brothers and sisters, it is not more holy to bind your conscience to things not in God's word. That's a temptation. It's a temptation when we're zealous for the Lord, we want to get rid of all this sin in our lives, It's a temptation to start piling on top of scripture all of these other ways we think God might give us some brownie points. And it will not work, it's actually deadly for our souls. It could destroy your faith in the work of Christ alone. And you could be establishing a righteousness of your own while rejecting the righteousness of God. So brother, sister, do not go this way Jesus is warning about, binding your conscience to things outside of God's word. It is a serious ordeal. It is not something to be played around with. Do not bind your conscience to what is beyond God's word. Instead, lay aside your self-righteousness. Come rest in Christ and his righteousness. If you're here and you do not follow Christ, and you have not trusted in him for salvation, this is also a call to you to lay down your self-righteousness. One thing I can guarantee about you, if you are not a believer, you're finding some sort of way to make yourself feel like you'll somehow be okay with God in the end. That may be that you try to just not even think about God, You try to just block out all thoughts of God so that you just won't feel that chasm between you and him. We all know that won't work. Or it could be that maybe you are seeking to please God through your own efforts. Maybe you're seeking to not come to Christ, but you are kind of compiling this list of all these different things you could do and say, surely if I do these things, God will be happy with me. really get off of my case and go away and leave me alone. Friend, that's not gonna work either. You cannot do all sorts of things you think you are righteous while rejecting God's own son and think you will be right with him in the end. The call to you is, well, lay down your self-righteousness, come to Christ. So that's point number one, lay down the burden of self-righteousness. Point number two, this is the other way that Christ calls us to come to him for rest. It's this, serve Christ as a gentle and lowly master. Jesus says in verse 29,