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[0:00] So friends, the Holy Gospel is found in the Good News according to St. Matthew, chapter 11, start at the 25th 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 understanding and revealed them to little children.

[0:21] Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

[0:37] 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.

[0:51] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So we all want rest. In some capacity, we all want to feel that sense of rest.

[1:06] And what do I mean by that? Well, we go about our lives at certain points, and we try to seek out these moments of rest. Whether it's, we work all year, then we want to go on a vacation, and we want to have this moment of rest, because we feel like we've worked hard for it.

[1:23] Or maybe we just went through the holiday season, and we want to have rest from our families. We all seek this feeling of having rest. But is all rest equal? Is all rest good?

[1:36] The text that Daniel just read is the text we're going to be looking at. And Jesus is talking about offering this rest, if you come to him. So what is this rest that Jesus talks about?

[1:50] Is this the same kind of rest as taking a vacation? Is it the same kind of rest as sitting back on the couch and watching Netflix? What is it? What's the rest? So we're going to look at that.

[2:00] And the text that we're going to look at speaks of it in three ways, the way we're going to look at it. It says, it talks about who can have this rest. It talks about who gives this rest.

[2:13] And then it also talks about how to get this rest. And we're also going to have to address what is this rest that Jesus is talking about. Is it just sitting back, relaxing on the couch, or is it something else?

[2:24] So if you haven't already, turn to Matthew chapter 11, verses 25 to 30. It's very helpful to have that with you, because you can see what happens after and what happens before the text.

[2:37] And to make sure I'm actually reading the text that we're talking about. So let's look at it. So who can have this rest? And we're going to look at verses 25 and 26.

[2:47] At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children.

[3:03] Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. Now over the holiday season, I've been watching a lot of YouTube. And the thing with YouTube is they have an algorithm that gives you ads that they think you want to watch.

[3:20] And the ad that for some reason that keeps popping up for me is this ad about the Ritz-Carlton cruise. This luxurious cruise. It keeps coming up. Every time I click on a video, it comes up where it's halfway through the video.

[3:33] And this ad describes this cruise that you can go on. We all know the Ritz hotels, so we can just imagine the luxuriousness of it. It shows it in this tropical, warm area.

[3:47] And it shows these people who are having a great time, relaxing. And then there's always this slogan that keeps coming up, that you deserve this. This cruise is for the other people.

[4:01] Those who are set apart. Those who are better. It's a new level of luxurious rest. It's obviously catering to a certain clientele. I don't know why it comes up for me, because there's no way I could go on it.

[4:14] In the context that we're looking at here, that Jesus is speaking to his disciples and to those who are around, talking with him. And they're listening to him. And then there's also the Pharisees and the scribes and the religious leaders of that time.

[4:29] And in Jerusalem, they are considered the elite. The elite people. People come to them to know what's up, what to know about religious matters, daily matters. And as you read the Gospels, you see that they consider themselves better than others.

[4:44] Those who are lower. They know better. In our context, it could be a politician or someone who's highly educated who thinks they're better because they've gone to school. Or they're wealthy or they have influence.

[4:56] It could even be a pastor who thinks they don't need to know anything from their congregation, that they know it all. It's this idea within those who think this way.

[5:07] It could be, I'm sure I fall prey to this too, that I don't need any help. That I deserve this. I deserve rest. I deserve to be above other people.

[5:19] Self-reliant. Only need themselves. But Jesus here, as we read, talks about this idea that he thanks the Father.

[5:31] That things have only been revealed to those who are childlike, to children. Not to the wise and understanding as we think that they would know better.

[5:41] But he reveals it to children. Something that shocked me, that I'm sure shocks any first-time parent, is how helpless a newborn baby is.

[5:55] Or a baby is. John is nine months and he's still completely helpless. It's shocking how utterly helpless babies are. And we have to care for them deeply. And they rely completely on us.

[6:08] Even if they push away. See, Christmas, as we just celebrated, and we're continuing to celebrate in the Advent season, is the story of the great hope of God entering into the world as this helpless baby.

[6:23] This baby that's completely helpless. Became helpless to help the helpless. That's the Christmas story in a nutshell. But what is Jesus getting at?

[6:34] Jesus is getting at this idea that only those who come to God completely helpless will be revealed to them.

[6:46] That is what Jesus is getting at here. If those who rely on their self-knowledge, the Father will not be revealed to them. That is what Jesus is getting at here. And it's something that we need to watch out for.

[6:59] Only those who realize their need will be saved, as Jesus says here. As he talks about this rest. But who gives the rest? In verse 27, he thanks the Father that all things have been given to him.

[7:12] All authority has been given to Jesus to reveal the Father to those he chooses. Now Jesus is pretty clear here. What does that mean? The Father has given the Son all authority.

[7:24] Through the Bible in the New Testament, Jesus is described as the doorkeeper. The one who has the keys. He is the shepherd. He is the great physician. He is the light.

[7:35] He is the fountain of life. Jesus is described as the one that you have to go to, to experience salvation. I recently was at a secular funeral.

[7:52] And they talk about going to a better place. They talk about the person is looking down on us right now. But this person had no interest in spiritual matters. They got there on their own.

[8:03] But Jesus here is talking about this rest that he gives. Is you have to go to him. And it's only through him that it's revealed. And that's the gospel.

[8:14] The gospel is that God sent his son to the world as a baby. And he grew up completely reliant on his parents.

[8:26] And he lived this perfect life. Because we cannot live it ourselves. That we have to have someone come and stand before us. That's the gospel message. That Jesus died for us and rose again for us.

[8:39] But what's the rest that Jesus is talking about? Is Jesus giving out vacations? As we talked about cruises. Well, if we look at the next verses. The famous.

[8:50] These verses are famous. Everyone knows these verses. If they're familiar with the gospel of Matthew. Let's look at them. 28 to 30. Jesus is saying, Come to me.

[9:03] Come to me. All who labor. 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 lonely in heart.

[9:16] And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy. And my burden is light. Now in the context of this.

[9:28] What Jesus is referring to here. Is that the religious leaders and the scribes of the day. They would. They would. They would heap on these burdensome tasks.

[9:39] They would heap on them the law. And make up other laws. The mosaic law. And then they would push it on them. To a certain extent that they can't even handle it. And they would feel burdensome.

[9:50] And Jesus saw this. And Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. And he offers himself as the fulfillment. So what he's saying here is that I. If you come to me.

[10:04] The burden of the law is broken. If you come to me. The law is fulfilled within me. And he talks about this rest. So what is this rest that he talks about?

[10:15] Jesus is talking about the rest from the law. The law where you feel like you have to. Constantly fight for God's approval. That is no more with Christ.

[10:26] And it's also this rest of eternal rest. This future hope that we can look to. The rest of when Jesus returns. I'm currently going through the book of Revelation.

[10:38] And there's a lot of things in the book of Revelations that's hard to understand. But the main theme of the book of Revelation. Is that Jesus is king. He is the lamb. And that he is coming to bring in the new Jerusalem.

[10:52] The new city. The new hope. The hope that we hope for now. That we rest in. We find rest in the city that will come. But how do we get this rest?

[11:05] How do we get it? Jesus brings it out to us in four ways. He says, come to me. He says, take my yoke.

[11:16] He says, learn from me. And he says, my burden is light. So what does he mean by when he says, come to me? Well, as we looked at, or as we talked about. Jesus says, you must come to me as a child.

[11:29] You must come to me as self-reliant. You must come to me not as one who thinks they can build themselves up to get to God. You must have childlike faith.

[11:41] The reliance on Jesus' finished work on the cross. And those who don't, they willingly reject Christ. And he says here, if you see, he says, come to me all.

[11:54] This isn't an exclusive, only some can come. Everyone is invited, but only few come, as Jesus talks about. And then he says, take my yoke.

[12:07] A yoke is when a farmer of that time, they put this piece of wood around an ox. And the yoke has two spots.

[12:17] There's the lead ox, the one who's familiar, the one who's well-trained. And then there's the ox that's being trained, so they're a bit behind. And they're led by the lead ox. So what Jesus is saying here is that you need to be yoked to me.

[12:32] You need to be, I need to lead you as you follow me. That's what he's saying when he says, take my yoke. He means complete submission to him. To your wills, you need to submit.

[12:45] All your desires, you need to submit to him. You need to follow him. You need to be yoked to him. It's active, not passive. And then he says, learn from me. What he means by that is reading scripture.

[13:00] Because it's his word. It's God's word. It's praying to him. It's meditating on Jesus. And it's finished work on the cross. And he says his burden is light. Now this is interesting.

[13:12] Because he offers this rest. And when we think rest, we think it's something, a complete relaxation. No more worry. No more stress.

[13:22] But he calls it a burden. What does he mean by that? See, the rest that he offers, there is a burden to it. But it's a lighter burden that if you don't have Christ in your life.

[13:36] Because what he's talking about is that you have this rest. This rest that you know that the work is finished. That you do not have to try to get right with God if you have your faith and trust in Christ.

[13:51] Because you've already been made right. You can rest in that. Because being a Christian, it's not promised that life is going to be easy.

[14:03] It's not promised that you're going to get through life unscathed. You're not going to be hurt by people. You're not going to experience injustice in your life. But what Jesus is saying here is that you can come to me, yoke yourself to me, and I will give you the rest to get through it.

[14:23] My burden is light. And this burden also is that when you become marked as a Christian, you will experience rejection of people. You will experience the persecution that Jesus has experienced before.

[14:40] These verses are famous. that come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.

[14:54] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. That's the gospel hope, right? That's why we all come here. We all come here to reflect on that hope, to be reminded of that hope, to be reminded of what Christ has done in our lives.

[15:13]  Rest in this life. Rest in the internal salvation that he promises. Jesus promises this, and all are invited to come to him. as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you can as you