Sermon Notes | 8.25.24

Matthew 11:28–30

[28] Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [29] 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. [30] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (ESV)

Moving from RESTLESSNESS to REST

Our CONDITION

Matthew 11:28a

Let’s talk about the YOKE…

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. – Matthew 23:4

What is your YOKE?

The Fatigue of Being Yourself

Depression in late modernity is a fatigue with no direct outward cause. It is the feeling, born within yourself, that you just don’t have the energy to be yourself. If it gets too heavy, you can become too fatigued to be at all…But it isn’t as though depression completely has no source. Rather…that its source is late modernity’s demand to create and continue to curate your own self. This task is taxing and deeply fatiguing. The speed of late modernity, its frantic pace of life imposed on us by the blitzing social and technological change since the 1970s, makes life a raging river. In this raging river you need to not only create your own identity but also reach out into the world to receive recognition for that identity, swimming like hell to keep up in the breakneck currents. It is your individual job in a constantly moving environment to be a self in the always-increasing pace of late modernity. And you need to be not just some generic, bland self but a happy, successful, recognized self who’s not spitting out water but riding the rapids, maybe even with style. Needing to swim yourself to the crest of the current means that the self in late modernity can never rest. To be this kind of self requires constant navigating. This self constantly rushes to keep up. – Andrew Root

The Fatigue of Being the Church

Being the church is about transformation, not change. Though on first blush these seem synonymous, transformation and change are quite different. Transformation, in the Christian tradition, comes from outside the self, relating to the self with an energy beyond the self. Because transformation comes from an energy outside the self, it invites the self into the new as a gift, as grace. It demands no increase for continuation, no energy investment to receive it. Transformation is the invitation into grace; it comes with an arriving word, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19). Transformation is not the necessity to speed up but the need to open up and receive. Change, on the other hand, comes from within the self. Change makes the self into something new, using the power and the effort of the self: it is produced by the energy of the self. – Andrew Root

[6] I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. [7] So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. – 1 Corinthians 3:6-7

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” – Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)

Our INVITATION

Matthew 11:28-29

I will give you rest. 

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say…

So, if we wish to follow Christ—and to walk in the easy yoke with him—we will have to accept his overall way of life as our way of life totally. Then, and only then, we may reasonably expect to know by experience how easy is the yoke and how light the burden…The secret of the easy yoke is simple, actually. It is the intelligent, informed, unyielding resolve to live as Jesus lived in all aspects of his life, not just in the moment of specific choice or action. – Dallas Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines

…and you will find rest for your souls.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. – Saint Augustine

Jesus’ PROVISION

Matthew 11:30

[30] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The heart of Christianity is you cannot possibly prove yourself because you cannot possibly do the things that deep in your heart you know you ought to do. Jesus is the true human being. Jesus is the righteousness of God. He has come, and he has done it. That’s the reason why he says, “Make me the burden. Make me the yoke. Make me the way you prove yourself.” – Tim Keller

[30] And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, [31] so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” – 1 Corinthians 1:30-31

A Prayer for Salvation

“Heavenly Father, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but through your Son Jesus I can be more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you that he lived the life I should have lived and paid the debt and punishment I owed. Receive me now for his sake. I turn from my sins and receive him as Savior. Amen.”