JESUS: His Promises - “I will give you rest” 

1-15-06     Audio

Matthew 11:28-30 (28)

We are continuing our series of messages on the life and teachings of Jesus.  Starting today we are going to be looking at Jesus’ promises, and then next month at Jesus’ commands, and then at His timeless principles, and then at the questions He asked people.

When Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth, he reminded them that when he had been with them his preaching had centered on Jesus.  He had not come with wise and persuasive words, but a simple message about Jesus: Who He was and what He had done.  And that’s what I believe God would have us to do this school year – to concentrate on Jesus in a way that I have never done before.

Over $9 billion is spent by people in our country each year trying to cope with stress.  There are seminars to deal with stress.  There are therapists who deal strictly with stress.  There are massage therapists who help people with stress.  There are vitamins you can take for stress.  There are books and magazines by the hundreds where you can find help with your stress.

I read that medication for stress and anxiety is among the best selling of any medication on the market.  Some of you are on such medication.  I’m not going to peach against medicine today, but the Bible talks about stress and what God’s antidote to stress is.  Let’s look at Jesus words here in Matthew 11:28-30. (read).

Jesus gives us a promise here: I will give you rest.  It is one of many promises that He makes in the Gospels, and in the next 3 weeks we will be looking at 3 more of them.  But Jesus is faithful to His promises.  He is not like so many of us.

Have you ever said to someone: “I’ll be praying for you” & then you’ve forgotten to do it?  You made them a promise; you told them you would do something for them.  But you failed to keep your promise. 

All of us have done that at one time or another.  But not Jesus!  He always keeps His promises, and He will keep this one we are looking at today. 

I want us to look at 4 questions about this promise:

To whom is the promise made?

What kind of rest does Jesus promise?

What conditions are there to the promise?

What is our part?

TO WHOM IS THE PROMISE MADE?

Jesus said: Come to Me all you who are weary and burdened, heavy laden, carry heavy burdens, are over burdened other translations say.  Those are words that sound like they could have been written just for our time.

Someone in our day wrote: A Psalm 23 Antithesis

The clock is my dictator, I shall not rest.
It makes me lie down only when exhausted.
It leads me into deep depression.
It hounds my soul.

It leads me in circles of frenzy, for activities sake.
Even though I run frantically from task to task, I will never get it all done,
For my ideal is with me.
Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.

They demand performance from me, beyond the limits of my schedule.
They anoint my head with migraines,
My in-basket overflows.

Surely fatigue and time pressures shall follow me
All the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the bonds of frustration forever

(Source unknown)

Why are people today so weary and burdened and frustrated and stressed-out?  Why is it that we carry such heavy loads?  It’s easy to blame other people.  It’s my family’s fault.  It’s my boss’ fault.  It’s my employees fault.  It’s my teacher’s fault.  It’s my student’s fault.  It’s my wife’s fault, my husband’s fault.  It’s my deadlines, it’s other people’s demands, it’s my emails, my voice-mails. Maybe it’s even God’s fault.

Someone wrote that we live in…

The age of the half-read page

And the quick hash and the mad dash.

The bright night and the nerves tight,

The plane hop, the brief stop,

The brain strain and the heart pain.

The cat naps till the spring snaps,

And the fun’s done.

The truth is that it’s not our circumstances that cause us stress, no matter how stressful those circumstances.  It’s how we think about our circumstances and how we choose to react to them that causes our stress or lack of it.  Not our circumstances themselves, but what we do with our circumstances.

Look at the example of Jesus.  He lived with a lot of stressful circumstances: disappointment and criticism and personal attacks.  Yet He does not seem to get stressed out.  Why?  He understood Who He was, and He understood Who He was trying to please.  He said in John 5:30 I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.  He understood His mission in life and He set His priorities to accomplish that mission.

Most of us are trying to please God and everyone else at the same time.  We don’t really understand who we are in Christ, and what it is that He has called us to do.  We don’t understand our mission, and have not set our priorities.  And there are so few Christians who can say with Jesus: “I seek not to please myself; I seek to please God.”

Having these things set in His life did not totally take stress away from Jesus life – the stressors were still there, but He was not stressed out.  He did not even try to please His earthly mother when to do so would have displeased His Heavenly Father.  And she did not get all bent out of shape when He didn’t.

Jesus had peace in the midst of stress, and He says to His followers: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  John 14:27; 16:33.

WHAT KIND OF REST DOES JESUS PROMISE US?

This is not just rest for our weary bodies; it’s more than that.  It’s not just that our bodies are weary and overburdened; our souls are also.  What we need most is soul-rest, and Jesus is the only source of that kind of rest.  We can get to bed as early as we like, but if our soul is in turmoil, if our soul is not at rest, we will simply toss and turn all night. 

The promise in v.28 of our text is: You will find rest for your souls.  What is soul-rest?

Soul-rest is release from the burdens that weigh us down.  The book of Ecclesiastes is an interesting book.  The key phrase in that book is “under the sun”.  Solomon writes about how nothing under the sun could satisfy his soul, that soul rest is not found in things on this earth.

He tried pleasure, he tried material things, he tried working, he tried studying, he tried alcohol, he tried riches, he tried great building projects, and nothing under the sun could bring rest to his soul and satisfy it.  Soul rest can never be found by anything under the sun.  It can only be found in a person, in Jesus Christ. 

What is it that wearies our soul?  What is it that burdens us down? Ministry to others burdens us down, and our souls need rest.  Other people and their problems, especially the ones I cannot do anything about – people who want me to fix their problem, or who I think I have the responsibility of fixing – those things weary our souls. 

The problems of life, the expectations of others, the disappointments, the frustrations, the criticisms, the rejections, the afflictions, the physical suffering - all of these things and many more weary our souls.

But the thing that burdens us the most is the guilt of our sins.  That is the greatest burden of all that weighs us down – our guilt.  It’s not the only thing, but it’s the greatest thing.  And that’s why soul-rest can only be found in Jesus.  He is the only One Who can deal effectively with the guilt of our sin because of His death on the cross for our sin.

WHAT CONDITIONS ARE THERE TO THE PROMISE?

Jesus says: “Come to Me.  Turn away from trying to find rest every place else and come to Me.” Jesus wants to be our source of soul-rest.

“But Pastor, you don’t understand. What I need is my psychiatrist. What I need is more medication; I need a vacation; I need more help.” Jesus said that what you need is to come to Him.

We can run from one activity to another, from one man-made solution to another, trying to find happiness and trying to find peace, but we will never find rest for our souls until we run to Jesus.  So many Christians today are trying to find rest for their souls in places other than in Jesus.  I’m not saying that those things are necessarily sinful, but why not do what Jesus said to do and come to Him?

1 Peter 5:7 says Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.  You are not coming to Jesus to whine and complain.  You are coming to unburden your soul and give those difficulties to Him.

In Exodus 33 it was a really stressful time in Moses’ life.  It was a time of crisis.  He was trying to lead the Israelites, and they had just rebelled against God and made themselves a golden calf and called it their god.  The true and living God had sent a plague among them and many of them died. And He said He would no longer be with them.

But Moses prayed and pleaded with God.  He said: “If You are not going to go with us, we aren’t going.  At least I’m not.  We need you, God.  We can’t do this without you.”  And that was just what God was wanting to hear.  So He said to Moses in v.14 “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

That’s why Jesus says we are to come to Him.  In His presence we will find rest.  Come to Him in prayer.  Come to Him in music.  Come to Him through His Word, the Bible.  Come to Him in Biblical meditation.  But come to Him.

Let’s look a little further at the question…

WHAT IS OUR PART?

Make the Lord your Shepherd. 

Psalm 23 The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters; He restores my soul.

Until I commit myself to following Jesus, my soul will never be at rest.  There is a restoration of my soul that only He can give to me.  This is not a simple prayer you say and then walk away and forget it.  This is a life that you are going to live for the rest of your time here on earth.

Jeremiah 6:16 This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

You have the ability to make a choice: you can walk in that ancient path, or you can walk in your own path.  But when you walk your own path, you will not find rest for your soul.  It is when you walk in His path, it is when He is leading you that you end up beside the quiet waters, your soul being rested and restored.

What struck me here in our text in Matthew 28 is that Jesus said: Take My yoke – “Your what?  First You say you will give me rest if I come; now You turn around and tell me if I come you will give me a yoke. How can I find rest if you give me a yoke?”

To those of you who are city folks, this is not taking about that yellow part of the egg.  And to those of you who are Scandinavian, this is not a story that makes you laugh.  This is a farming instrument that was used before there were tractors. 

Here’s a picture of a yoke:

It was used for hitching two animals together so that they would work alongside of each other and share the load.  Jesus invites us to come to Him so that we might be hitched to Him and labor alongside of Him.  But He says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

I tried to find a picture of what some have said it was like – a learner’s yoke, where one animal bears the majority of the weight, and the other is mostly just being broken to harness.  It sounds good, but I’m not sure if it is historically accurate.  At any rate, Jesus said that walking with Him is not overly burdensome to us.

It’s like the difference between having stress and being stressed-out. Or it may be like the stress you put on a guitar or violin string.  If there is no stress on the string, it’s worthless.  If you have too much stress on the string it breaks.  But with the right amount of stress you can play beautiful music. 

And maybe that’s what it’s like to be yoked with Jesus.  There are still burdens in life, but we bring them to Him and He carries the weight as we walk alongside of Him.

Let me give you some further very practical things in dealing with stress.

1. Prioritize your life.  Not everything in life is of equal importance.  And unless we make the most important things in life the highest priority in our life, we will spend our time on inconsequential things and neglect the important things.

2. Make pleasing God your first priority in life.  More important than pleasing your friends, more important than pleasing your spouse or children or your parents, more important than pleasing yourself – put pleasing God as first importance.  Everything else has to be second.

3. Learn to say “no” to some things so you can say “yes” to better things.  Someone has called this building margins in your life.  If your life is filled to overflowing with all the things you are doing, and then one more thing comes along, it brings great stress.   But when you have set your priorities, you can say “no” to lesser things so you can say “yes” to the most important things.

4. Understand the connection between the physical & the spiritual and the emotional.  Your care of your physical body and your spirit nature affects your emotions.  And how you care for your body and your emotions affects your spirit as well.  When you never rest from your labors, when you never get physical exercise, when you are not eating healthy, that affects your whole being.  You cannot separate the different aspects of your being except to talk about them.  You are one being, and each part of you affects the others.

You will experience stress in life.  There is no escaping it.  But Jesus’ promise is that you do not have to live life stressed out.  There is a place of rest, of soul-rest as you come to Him.  You may still have the cancer in your body; you may still have rebellious teenagers; you may still have conflict at work, or in your marriage.  But your soul can be at rest as you come to Him.  He has made you a promise, and He will be faithful to His promise as you meet His conditions. 

Pressure

Pressed out of measure and pressed to all length;
Pressed so intensely, it seems beyond strength;

Pressed in the body, and pressed in the soul;
Pressed in the mind, till the dark surges roll.

Pressure by foes, and pressure by friends—
Pressure on pressure, till life nearly ends.

Pressed into knowing no helper but God;
Pressed into loving the staff and the rod.

Pressed into liberty where nothing clings;
Pressed into faith for impossible things.

Pressed into tasting the joy of the Lord;
Pressed into loving a Christlife outpoured.

PRAY

MORE PROMISES FOR YOUR TIMES OF STRESS:

My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.  Psalm 62:1-2

I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"

Jeremiah 29:11

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.  Psalm 42:5

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” Joshua 1:9.

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength” Philippians 4:12-13