Called to Follow: A Savior for the Exhausted

Proclaim the goodness of the gospel. We're going to be in Matthew here in just a moment. We've been walking through a series talking about following Jesus, how Jesus is a Savior for those who maybe have questions, who are skeptical, for maybe those who are overlooked or who feel like they have been unseen. He's the Savior for those who maybe feel unwanted. And this morning we're going to take a look at how Jesus is a Savior for the weary. And so I'm going to begin by praying, and then we will spend some time together in God's Word. Father in heaven, we thank you for taking care of us. We thank you for your word. And we just ask that as we come to these moments, you would encourage us in a world where it seems like we're often tired and overwhelmed that you would direct us.

to the strength of the gospel. Thank you for Jesus and for grace. It's in your Son's name we pray. Amen. So I made a lot of rookie mistakes yesterday. It was yesterday afternoon, and the kids and I had to run to the grocery store to pick up a couple things. And so we started by running to Martin's, and we were laser-focused. It was like we were on a mission. We got out. Teamwork was happening. We got in, and we got out, and it was perfect. And then came the rookie mistakes, and they just sort of piled on to each other. Because in addition to running to Martin's just for a couple things, we had to go to Costco. And so rookie mistake number one was Costco on a Saturday. Rookie mistake number two was Costco when every single one of us were hungry. And so as we walked through Costco, or in some cases bludgeoned our way through Costco with the shopping cart,

And we get to the food, and we start looking at all the different options for dinner. And one of the things that happens is when you're hungry, everything looks good. And so the kids and I are sitting there, and they go, "I'd try that. I'd try that." And I was like, "Right on. I'm really hungry. Let's try it all." And then what happens? We get home, and we begin to make the food, and we regret every single one of our choices. I don't know if I'm going to like that. I don't like how that looks. Right? And it was just rookie mistake after rookie mistake for me. And what was at the heart of it was that in that moment in Costco, we thought we knew what our heart wanted and what our heart needed, and it turned out we were wrong.

And it's not just true for Costco at 5 p.m. on a Saturday. I would say that it's true for all of our hearts all of the time that what we think our heart truly needs were frequently very wrong. And the good news about Jesus that we're going to see here in the book of Matthew is that Jesus knows exactly what our hearts need. So before we get to our text this morning, we need to understand what's happening around our text. We need to know what's going on before these verses. We're going to read in just a moment what happens before. And it's not just sort of an interesting intellectual exercise, but in this chapter what Jesus is doing is he is addressing the needs of our heart. And sometimes he's very, very gentle and very, very careful, but there are other times where we tend to not listen and Jesus gets a little louder and a little more firm.

And so what we see in this chapter as we walk through it, first of all, is that Jesus knows how to deal with our doubts. Matthew chapter 11 begins with John the Baptist, and he is in prison. He's been speaking the truth of God to the king of the area, King Herod, and it has not gone well for him. And because he has offended the king, he is in prison. And John, he knows his Bible, and he knows that one of the identifying marks of the Messiah is that the Messiah would come and he would get people out of jail. And so John is beginning to do the math, thinking, "Well, if Jesus is the Messiah," he said, "I've seen him, I've baptized him, I've proclaimed that he's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."

If he's the Messiah, and the Messiah brings people out of jail, and here I am in jail, is Jesus really the Messiah? And he begins to struggle with his doubts. And so what he does is he doesn't speculate and he doesn't guess about things. He goes to Jesus, which is the place where we need to go with our questions and our doubts, and he takes them to Jesus by sending two messengers. Luke's account gives us a few more details. And the reason he sends two messengers to Jesus, because in the first century, that was enough for a legal witness. One person's testimony wasn't enough, but two people's testimony was. And so John sends a legal witness with the question to Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?"

And what's interesting in Luke's account is Jesus doesn't even answer the question. Not right away. They come and they ask this question, and in Luke's account, Jesus spends the next hour healing everybody in sight, physically, spiritually, dealing with all of the brokenness. And then he turns and addresses John's messengers. And what Jesus is doing, not just with how he speaks to John in the beginning of this chapter, but with what he does before he speaks, is he is answering the questions of a discouraged heart. And maybe this morning, if you're in a place where nothing seems to be going according to plan, Jesus, talking to John through those messengers, is seeking both through word and example to deal with the doubts and the struggles of the heart. The very next thing that happens is controversy. Specifically, the crowds that have been surrounding Jesus and have watched him heal, and they've heard what he said about John the Baptist as he answers the question

that John has. They begin to sort of insert themselves into the middle of the situation. And from Jesus' reaction, they are doing so in sort of a negative, critical way in regards to John. And so Jesus begins to speak, and he does so by dealing with the self-centeredness of the crowd. And we might say, "Well, I'm not self-centered." Let me tell you how unselfish I really am. And it's in those moments we begin to realize that we might need some quiet reflection as well. Because what happens with our hearts? If our hearts become self-centered, we become the standard by which everything else is measured. And you can see this in a lot of small ways in our world. If you think about it, when we're driving, right, we become the standard by which everything else is measured, right?

If you're going faster than I am, you're reckless. If you're going slower than I am, you just don't know how to drive, and you're driving too slow, and you need to get out of the way. Because my speed and my decisions are the perfect ones, and they are the ones by which I will measure the standard of everybody else's driving. And when your heart becomes focused so much on yourself, you begin to do this. If somebody does more, they've done too much. If they do less, they haven't done enough. And self-centered, being self-centered, our heart makes us the standard by which we measure everyone else. And so in this text, in verse 18, that's what has happened. People have come and they've asked, John's disciples have come, he's talked to Jesus, he sent them away, and now the crowds are mad at both John and Jesus.

And in verse 18, Jesus addresses the self-centeredness of the crowd. Because they said, "John, he doesn't eat, he doesn't drink, he's no fun at all," and they accuse him of having a demon. And then Jesus shows up and he eats and he drinks. And these people who have just criticized John for not eating and not drinking, now criticize Jesus for doing too much eating and too much drinking. And they say he's a glutton and a friend of sinners, right? That guy, John, is no fun. That guy, Jesus, has too much fun. And Jesus looks at them. And he doesn't ignore them and he doesn't bite back bitterly. But he engages them and seeks to show them that there's something bigger. And so he points out the fact that the standard is really the center of the heart. He said, "Nothing makes you happy."

Right? We can play a happy song and you'd be mad and say it needs to be sad. We can play a sad song and you'd be mad and it wasn't happy. He says, "You're mad about John not doing enough. You're mad about me doing too much." The issue in the center of your heart is that it's focused so much on yourself you can't see anybody else. And so Jesus in Matthew chapter 11 begins by dealing with doubt, then with self-centeredness, and then in the last section before our text, he deals with hard hearts. And Jesus pronounces judgment on these three cities in Matthew chapter 11. And he's done some amazing things and spent some extended period of time in this area, and these people, instead of listening to Jesus' call, simply are there to see a show.

And here's the reality, that if we live with sin and brokenness long enough, it becomes our reality. And I was thinking back to one of the very first times I was in the hospital here. It was a Sunday morning. Greg probably remembers it well, because I was not doing well. His brother-in-law shows up, happens to be a pastor, and we tagged him in, and I went to the emergency room. And I remember laying there in the emergency room, and I was hurting really bad, but I'm a pessimist about pain. So when they come in and they go, "What's your pain number?" I always say something kind of low, because I'm like, "It can always get way worse," right? And it usually does. And so I tend to understate it. And after about an hour in there, as they're doing tests back and forth,

and I don't know if this was a nurse or a doctor, they walked in, and they said, "We can't handle you just like writhing around on this bed." I said, "I'm not writhing. I'm taking this pain like a man." And they said, "No, you're not." And then they put something into the IV, and it was only when the absence of pain was present that I realized how much pain I had actually been in. By removing that, all of a sudden I realized how badly I was hurting. And the same is true for our hard hearts in the darkness of rebellion against God, right? We have had so much time to get used to it. It's become normal, the brokenness that surrounds us. And that is what happens in this last section before our text. These three cities and all of the people who are there have become so used to darkness and brokenness that when Jesus shows up, they go, "I don't need any of that."

And so Jesus speaks to them very strongly, not out of anger, but to sternly tell them that there is something they desperately, desperately need. And it's in this context of doubt and of self-centeredness and of hard hearts to the brokenness in the world that Jesus begins to pray. And it's in this prayer that we begin to meet a new group in this chapter. So we're going to take a minute and just read through Matthew 11:25-30. This begins with Jesus praying, and he says, "Come to me." Well, that's not the right verse. At that time, Jesus declared, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding, and revealed them to the little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father,

and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 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." And as Jesus prays in the first few verses, we begin to see both his identity and his heart. You see, Jesus has been, in this chapter we learn from Luke's Gospel, he has been healing. In fact, Luke 21 says this, "In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight."

And one of the questions that the crowd has is, first of all, "How does Jesus have this power?" But as they hear his prayer, they're also going to say, "Who does he think he is?" Because in these words that may seem sort of confusing to us, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding and revealed them to the little children. Father, such was your gracious will, and all things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." What Jesus is doing, very simply, and there's a lot here, he's simply declaring that he is the Son of God.

In John's Gospel, it happens like this as they talk about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He says, "Before Abraham was, I am." And the first part of this prayer, we see both Jesus' heart, and we see his identity in all of these words to the Father, and about the Father, and what the Father has given him and entrusted him. Jesus is saying, "I am the Son of God." And what we find is that the identity of Jesus helps our weary hearts, because Jesus has the power to help. And what's wonderful is just because we have the power to help, we don't always help. And so sometimes, in our house, somebody, she'll remain unnamed, will say, "Can you help me?" And I'll go, "Well, I could help you," right? Because "can" doesn't always mean "will," right? And so here we have Jesus in this declaration that he is the Son of God as he prays,

and the implication is he can help. The question is, "Will he help?" And what I love in this text, in Matthew chapter 11 and verse 25, he says, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, you have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding, and revealed them to the little children." I want you to see what Jesus is saying here, and I want you to see the love of Jesus. In Luke chapter 18, Jesus is surrounded by a great crowd, and everybody starts to bring their kids to him. And the disciples say, "No, we don't want any kids. They're noisy. They're rambunctious. They sometimes get in the way." And Jesus says this, "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."

And Jesus is not just saying children are important, but rather the children have something to teach them. And one of those things, I think, is about enthusiasm. In our world, it's so easy to be cynical, and it's so easy to be negative. And especially with young children, right, they have joy in such simple things. And I love it. For most of my life as an adult, I didn't think much about cows, right? But now, as a dad, every time we pass a field of cows, it's like, "Hey, there's cows!" And everybody looks at cows now, and it's to the point now where even if I don't have kids in the car, and in one case where I was by myself, I'm like, "Look, there's cows!" And then you realize there's nobody else in the car with you.

And one of the things I think Jesus loves about children is their enthusiasm and their joy for these things. And so he tells us as adults, he says, "There's an enthusiasm that is found in seeing these things." It brings us joy. And Jesus says to us, "Grumpy adults, maybe you have something to learn from these children." But it's not just the joy of children. In this text, I think Jesus is saying the children do something a lot of us as adults struggle to do, and that's simply to ask for help. And he says, "You've hidden these things from the wise, the people who are self-centered and think they have it all together, but the children, you have shown it to them." I don't like to ask for help. Most of us don't like to ask for help. We struggle with that.

Spend some time with some little kids, and you'll find that they love to ask for help, right? I could be in the middle of fighting a forest fire, and there would be a child come up and go, "Hey, can you help me open my fruit snacks?" Right? And you turn around, you help open their fruit snacks, you go back to the fire, right? It happens regularly. And I think one of the things that Jesus loves about children, and he wants to encourage us as adults in regard to our attitude, is that a child doesn't care what you're doing. If they need help, they're going to come and ask you. But we as adults, we think that we can handle it, and we can figure out, and we can put it together ourselves. And so Jesus here is saying, when he talks about revealing this to the little children,

I'm not speaking to those who think they have it all together. I'm speaking to those who realize they can't do it by themselves. I want you to hear what Jesus says to our weary hearts this morning. We begin in verse 28. He just simply says this, "Come to me. All who labor and are heavy laden, 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." The first thing you see Jesus saying is there is hope and help for the weariness that you face. We like to have an answer for all of our troubles, right? If we're tired, it's like maybe I just need to get stronger, right?

That day really wore me. If I got stronger, I'd be able to work harder and not feel it as much. Or if I had planned things out better, and if I had done more in advance to prepare, it would have been easier. If I had gotten a good night's sleep, I would be much less tired right now. Or this is my go-to. If I had just had like a few more pots of coffee, I would have been able to accomplish everything that I needed to. And that's not what Jesus says. Jesus doesn't say, "You need to be stronger. You need to get a better plan. You need to get a better night's sleep. Or caffeine." He just simply says this, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

There is hope and help for the weariness that you face. Jesus then deals with our fear. Have you ever heard somebody say, like, "It never hurts to ask?" Like, sometimes it does, right? Sometimes the response you get is harsh, and it's unexpected, and it's disturbing, and it breaks your heart because you had this hope, and now it's dashed and taken away. We come in with hope, and we ask, and the answer is no, and we leave even more hopeless. Jesus deals with that fear in this text. We glimpse this as He talked about the children. And you find Him saying this, "For I am gentle and lowly in heart." And so Jesus, first of all, says there's rest. Secondly, I'm gentle and lowly, and then third, He calls us to walk with Him. I want to talk about this rest just for a moment that Jesus gives us.

This rest is not simply bringing you a nice chair and saying, "Here, why don't you sit down for a while?" The rest that Jesus brings us is not to send us on vacation to recharge. Look what Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest." Now look what He says, "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." He says, "Come rest," and the way you do that is by following me. We're probably not super familiar with the idea of a yoke, but it's that piece of wood either on the back of horses or cattle to allow them to pull heavier loads.

But it can also be used individually if you've watched somebody carrying a whole bunch of water rather than straining your arms with the pails, right? It's a piece of wood, and you set it on your neck, and you hook it in, and it allows you to carry much more weight than you normally would. And here's Jesus going, "Hey, you're super tired. You're exhausted. You feel like you can't go on. Here, come on, put on this yoke." And we go, "I don't know that that sounds very much to me like rest." In the first century, this idea of a yoke wasn't just for animals or trying to carry heavy things. But it also referred to the teaching of a religious leader, and so the Pharisees' teaching would have been their yoke. The Sadducees, as they taught it, would have been their yoke. The scribes, it was all pictured as teaching.

And in some cases, that teaching was heavy and heartbreaking, and people crumbled under the expectation. Jesus once said to the Pharisees that you bind up heavy burdens on the backs of people. And Jesus doesn't just say, "Hey, this is easier." But what does he say? It is easy and light. And the reason for that is that Jesus equips, strengthens, and carries you. Our kids like to bring a lot of stuff with them where they go, and I love that. It's always hard when you're trying to go somewhere simple, and you have like several backpacks. I remember when they were very little, really little, and you'd go to get them out of the car, and somehow the shoes always come off in the car. And so maybe it's cold and it's wintry, and there's no shoes, and you don't want to stand in the snow and put their shoes on.

They also have all this stuff, and they go, "Hey, can you carry? Here's my stuff. Here's my backpack and all of my things, and now what I want you to do is carry that and carry me." So what we did is we'd put everything in the backpack and say, "Put on the backpack." So they would put on all this stuff, and then what do you do? You pick up your child and the backpack and carry them into the house. The picture here of Jesus is not saying, "Hey, you need rest, and your exhausted show up. I've got some more burdens for you, but rather come and hear my teaching, and listen to my teaching, and follow the teaching that I have for you." And you find that Jesus equips us, strengthens us, and then carries us to where we need to go.

And Jesus takes all of our weariness, and he gives us strength. And the call here is to follow him. That's what Jesus is saying, that if you are tired, and you are worn out, and you are at the end of your rope, and you're struggling, and you're exhausted, he says, "Come to me." I will give you rest. I will give you strength. I will give you direction. I will equip you. I will strengthen you. And I will carry you through this. One of my favorite pastors outside of Scripture is a guy by the name of Charles Spurgeon. If you've been here, I've mentioned him a lot. This was one of his favorite texts. In fact, he starts one of his sermons like this. "I have often preached from this text." And then he begins to list the titles of his sermon, "The Meek and Lowly One."

And then another sermon called "Rest, Rest." And then another sermon, "Rest for the Laboring." And in another sermon, "Christ Word with You." Another sermon, "Christ Given Rest." And another sermon at the end of the 1800s, "The Old Gospel for a New Century." So Spurgeon says, "I've preached like eight sermons from this passage of Scripture." And he was specifically speaking about, "Come to me all you who labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And Spurgeon then goes on to say, "Not only have I preached from this verse a whole ton." He says this, "I hope, if I continue to live, to often preach from it in the future." Here's why Spurgeon loved these verses so much. He says this, "It is one of those great constellation texts." "Which, like certain stars, shine so brightly in the sky."

"Having served as a guide to mariners and have helped direct many a poor tempest-tossed seaman into the harbor that he wanted to reach." "These texts have guided many into the haven of everlasting peace." And Spurgeon says this is one of those texts that will navigate us and guide us and show us a way to a harbor of safety and peace. It's a text for the followers of Jesus who are struggling and discouraged and who are tired and there's not enough left in their tank and they're filled with grief and uncertainty. Right? The gas light is on in your car and you've been driving for a while. This is a text for you. But also this invitation, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Right? It's a text for the doubters, for the self-centered.

For those who hearts are hardened by the sin and suffering. It's my prayer that the light of Jesus would melt and transform you and you would hear these words in the midst of your exhaustion. "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you that you provide and that your grace is sufficient for us and that you bring us to rest. And so we ask that you would help our hearts in the doubts and struggles of life, in those moments where it is so easy to center ourself on ourself and to make ourself the standard. Would you lift our eyes to you? Help us with the danger of hard hearts, the brokenness in our life and the brokenness that surrounds us. Make us like little children.

In our joy, in your presence, in our courage to boldly ask for whatever it is we need. And may you give rest to our weary souls. It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.