Matthew 11:28-31: Come Unto Me, All Who Labor and Are Heavy Laden

INTRODUCTION

When I was in Korea during the war I sometimes saw poor farmers trudging along the side of the road carrying enormous loads of hay on their shoulders—loads far bigger than the farmers were.

When Charlotte and I lived in Japan, sometimes we saw old women on the street who were bent at the waist, so that their bodies were bent at a right angle. They had to raise their heads at at a painful angle to see where they were going.

A Japanese friend told me that these women had worked on the mountains carrying sticks for the charcoal furnaces, and that this was why they were permanently bent over.

People everywhere carry heavy burdens. Sometimes it is a physical burden, like the poor farmers in Korea carrying their huge loads of hay, or the poor women in Japan who gathered charcoal from the mountains.

But the heaviest burdens may not be physical burdens. Emotional and mental burdens may be the heaviest of all.

Many children have miserable lives because they are picked on.

Girls are burdened because they aren’t pretty. Boys are burdened because they aren’t athletic. Others are burdened by their inability to keep up in their schoolwork.

Young adults worry about finding and keeping work, and others about getting along with people.

Some people deal with chronic illness or handicaps.

Some people find marriage a burden and children a burden. Others are burdened by their singleness.

Many are burdened by poverty, and it doesn’t help that fortunate people see them as “just plain lazy.”

We old people bear the burdens of declining health.

And some among us are troubled by loneliness, not having enough money, neglect by their children, and the regrets and disappointments of their life.

Our scripture for today is Matthew 11:28, 29, and 30. I learned this verse for Sunday school when I was very young. Maybe you learned it too. Jesus said:

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.

It is not hard to imagine the bleakness of the lives of the common people of first century Palestine. In the days of Jesus only the rich people could be sure of having enough to eat.

Farmers in those days toiled in the hot sun without our laborsaving devices.

Health concerns that can be fixed by a trip to the doctor, or a pill, or a simple surgical procedure today, in those days brought on sure death or lifelong disability.

Life was short. In early United States, half the babies died before they were 10-years-old. Probably ancient times weren’t better. There were old people; we read about them in the Bible, but most people died young, and if they lived to be old, they lost their teeth, their eyesight, or faced other handicaps.

Many, many were bind or crippled and could only live by begging.

People found comfort in their God, but their religious leaders often made their religion confusing and hard by piling on more and more rules.

I. In this saying Jesus invites us: “Come to me…”

A. Jesus invites to come away from our self-sufficiency, our self-centeredness, our pride, our struggling to live life without God.

Jesus loves us, just as we are—however lonely, however unsuccessful, however un-intellectual.

And he invites us to come to him.

An old hymn that was popular in the circles in which I was raised is this one:

Just as I am, without one plea

But that thy blood was shed for me,

And that thou bidd’st me come to thee,

O Lamb of God, I come! I come!...

Just as I am, thou wilt receive,

Wilt welcome pardon, cleanse, relieve,

Because thy promise I believe,

O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

I had a believing friend who was tormented for many years with the affliction of schizophrenia. His name was Eddie. Eddie loved that hymn.

It was a great comfort that Jesus invited him, just as he was.

B. And Jesus invites us to come to him—to let him be our Lord and Savior and Friend—the master of our lives.

When we respond to that invitation from our Lord Jesus, we stop in our tracks, turn from the vain things of the world—pleasures, riches, worldly success, failure—and fall into the arms of Jesus.

II. Now hear the promise: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

A. Long before the time of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah wrote:

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in confidence

will be your strength”

(Isaiah 30:15).

People are always pursuing happiness.

Some people think that happiness is what we’re made for.

It’s even in our Declaration of Independence. Supposedly, we have been endowed by our Creator with…“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

But happiness comes and goes.

Happiness is like a butterfly. We can never catch it by pursuing it.

But when we come to God, God gives us something better even than happiness. He gives us rest for our souls.

Rest for our souls is the deepest craving of our hearts. But it is only found in one way.

B. But you know that even for the most committed believer—maybe especially for the committed believer—life is often hard. Jesus promised that the road to life would be full of difficulties.

When Jesus says, “I will give you rest,” he doesn’t mean that everything will always go our way. He doesn’t mean that we won’t ever be anxious.

In Jesus’s time there were people who were called stoics. Stoics tried to overcome all troubling emotions. They recommended passive detachment from the world.

“Nothing in the world is good or bad,” they said. “Things are simply what they are.” Stoics cultivated an attitude of indifference to the vicissitudes of life.

One of them, a man named Epictetus, said he could be “sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and yet happy, in disgrace and yet happy.”

From what I have read, some of the Buddhists seek this quietness of spirit, so that they don’t desire anything and aren’t troubled by anything that happens. They think of themselves as floating like corks on troubled waters.

But we who belong to Jesus are deeply involved in the world, just as Jesus was. Paul wrote, “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12). We are intended to feel things deeply, just as Jesus felt things deeply.

So “rest for our souls” doesn’t mean that we are always tranquil, at peace with the world. Rest in Jesus is something better than that.

III. Then Jesus 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.”

A. Jesus doesn’t say to those who labor and are heavy laden, “Come, sit in my La-Z-Boy Recliner, Come, lie down on my feather bed, Come, swing in my hammock.” He says, “Take my yoke upon you.”

A “yoke” is for working. With a yoke two oxen are harnessed together to pull a plow, or a wagon.

When Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you…” he is telling us: “Come, work with me. Be my partner in the work of your life.”

Jesus calls us to rest, but he doesn’t call us to a life of idleness. That isn’t what Jesus means by “rest.”

Jesus is asking that we give ourselves to him… to let him direct our lives … learn to live for God rather than for ourselves.

You might be telling yourself, “I’m old. I’m weak. My working days are over. Now I have only to look forward to my Homecoming—to life in Heaven with Jesus.”

No, your work is not done—not until you draw your last breath.

Your work is not done because you can still pray. There’s no end to the things you can thank God for. There’s no end to the needs of others that you can bring to God.

The Bible says, “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

You can bear the burdens of another by your sympathy, your prayers, maybe by writing a note of encouragement.

Do you ever tell your CNAs, your housekeepers, your servers in the dining room how much you appreciate the good work they do for you? You can bless them by your gratitude.

You can bear witness to your faith in God by how you handle your pains and troubles.

Our pastor sometimes talks about serving God in the pews. Just your coming to church is an encouragement to your fellow believers.

It encourages me that you are here. It encourages others that you are here.

Once I told you this old children’s Sunday school song. It comes from long ago, before your time or my time:

There’s a work for Jesus, ready at your hand.

‘Tis the work the Savior, just for you has planned.

Haste to do his bidding; yield obedience true.

There’s a work for Jesus, none but you can do.

A famous Christian long ago—St. Ignatius Loyola—made this prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,

Fill us, we pray, with your light and love,

that we may reveal your wondrous glory.

Grant that your love may so fill our lives

that we may find nothing too small to do for you,

nothing to much to give, nothing too hard to bear.

B. And when we give ourselves to Jesus, we find rest—not the rest of perfectly quiet hearts. No, the troubles still come.

The rest we find in Jesus is the rest of companionship with the Savior… the rest of knowing that all will be well—whatever our troubles look like today.

That’s why Jesus’s yoke is an “easy” yoke. As we live in fellowship with Jesus and in obedience to him, life is good.

Jesus says, “…for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Jesus is gentle and humble.

He is a kind teacher, a gentle master.

When we join our life to his, then we have rest. We have the peace of knowing that he will never leave us or forsake us.

No matter how troublesome life becomes, Jesus is always with us. He will be with us to the end. And someday he will take us home to be with him in glory.

CONCUSION

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

“Come unto me and rest;

lay down, thou weary one, lay down

thy head upon my breast.”

I came to Jesus as I was,

weary, worn, and sad;

I found him in a resting place,

and he has made me glad.

Matthew 5:7: "Blessed Are the Merciful"

INTRODUCTION

Last year we started a series on the Beatitudes, the eight short statements that begin Jesus’s “Sermon on the Mount.”

The first four—those we have talked about—are:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

And, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

The word translated “blessed” is the word for happy, but it is usually translated “blessed” or “fortunate,” because the happiness Jesus is talking about is more than just a feeling.

Jesus is saying, “How fortunate are the poor in spirit…those who mourn…the meek…and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

Today we come to the fifth beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

The surest sign that we have experienced the mercy of God is that we want to pass it on to others.

And the surest sign that a supposedly-religious person has not really experienced God’s mercy is that he or she is unwilling to extend mercy to others.

I read a startling statement in a book recently. It said, “To get into heaven, we will need a letter of recommendation from the poor!”

That might be taken to mean that we earn our salvation by generosity to the poor. But that’s not what the author intended.

She is referring to what Jesus told his followers in this fifth Beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

People say, “God is love.” That’s the only verse they think they need to know. They say, “If God is love, of course he will forgive me.”

Heinrich Heine was a famous poet. He was also an irreligious man. When on his deathbed, someone reproved him for his life of sin, he said, “Of course, God will forgive me—that’s his business!”

Some people say, “When I was a child I gave my heart to Jesus.” But since that little prayer they said once upon a time, they may have done nothing to show that they really belong to Jesus.

Salvation is by grace; we can’t earn it, and we can’t deserve it. But Jesus tells us over and over that knowing Christ means a changed life.

He once challenged some would-be disciples with these words, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

Jesus also said, “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:16 and 20). In this beatitude Jesus is telling us that mercy is one of the fruits by which we can know that we truly belong to God.

I. So let’s look at this saying, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” The mercy Jesus is talking about expresses itself in two main ways—compassion and forgiveness.

A. Let me tell you a story about compassion that I found on the news a few years ago.

This story appeared in the newspaper of Rock Hill, South Carolina. A man named Ed Peirce, who lives in that city owns rental houses. The fathers of two families he rented to, lost their jobs.

Mr. Peirce would have been perfectly within his rights to evict the two families, with their small children, especially since he needed the money from their rent for his own living expenses.

But Mr. Peirce didn’t do that. He went back to work full-time at the photo counter in a Walgreens drug store so that those two families could get back on their feet.

The newspaper quoted Mr. Peirce: “I sat with them and prayed for better times. These are stand-up guys. Family men. Proud. They paid me before when they were working. You don’t show your faith, your Christianity, in words. You do it in deeds” (Huffington Post September 24, 2009).

I used to think that compassion meant only feeling sorry…having sympathy. In the Bible, compassion means feeling sorry enough to do something.

The priest and the Levite in Jesus’s story of the Good Samaritan may have felt sorry for the poor man dying on the Jericho road.

But the Samaritan who came by, not only felt sorry, he showed compassion. He risked his life by stopping. He treated the man’s wounds, put him on his donkey, and took him to the inn. He left him with the innkeeper and offered to pay his expenses until he got on his feet. That is compassion—and compassion costs.

Sometimes compassion means only taking time to sympathize, to pray, to help in whatever way we can.

Sometimes it costs more—as it did the Samaritan—and as it cost Ed Pierce.

B. Compassion can also mean forgiveness—and forgiveness also costs. If you have ever been really hurt by another person’s cruelty, you know that it costs to forgive.

This story came from The New York Times, August 2005

Ryan Cushing, a 19-year-old was one of six teenagers out for a night of joyriding and crime.

Ryan’s companions were charged with stealing credit cards and forgery, but Cushing was charged with assault for tossing a frozen turkey through the windshield of a car and nearly killing a woman named Victoria Ruvolo.

Ms. Ruvolo needed many hours of surgery to rebuild her shattered facial bones.

Convicted, Ryan was facing 25 years in prison.

Upon leaving the courtroom the boy came face-to-face with his victim, Ms. Ruvolo.

He said he was sorry and begged her to forgive him.

Ms. Ruvolo did. She cradled his head as he sobbed. She stroked his face and patted his back. “It’s O.K., It’s O.K.,” she said. “I just want you to make your life the best it can be.”

The prosecutor wanted to impose harsh punishment on a crime he denounced as heedless and brutal, but Ms. Ruvolo’s resolute compassion, changed his mind.

The story ends with this observation: “Given the opportunity for retribution, Ms. Ruvolo gave and got something better: the dissipation of anger and the restoration of hope, in a gesture as cleansing as the tears washing down her damaged face, and the face of the foolish, miserable boy whose life she single-handedly restored.”

The story doesn’t say that Ms. Ruvolo is a Christian believer, but I am sure that her generous act of mercy came from her love for God.

II. To be merciful is to be like God.

A. We read in Psalm 145:9:

The Lord is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The Lord is good to all

and his compassion is over all that he has made.

B. God’s compassion shines out most clearly in his giving his Son, our Lord Jesus, for us to the terrible death on the cross, so that we might be forgiven and granted salvation. That’s mercy!

And if we have truly experienced God’s mercy, we will reflect it in our lives. We will be merciful people.

That’s why Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

It’s true that God loves even the worst of us. Nothing that we ever do can make God stop caring for us, to stop seeking to draw us to himself and make us his children.

But experiencing God’s mercy has to transform our lives. If we are unmerciful, we are proving that we have not really experienced the mercy of God.

C. In the story of judgment in Matthew 25 Jesus, as judge, tells those who were unmerciful, that because they have not fed the hungry, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, taken care of the sick, and visited those in prison, they have rejected not only those suffering people—but Jesus himself.

They have rejected God’s mercy. For them, God can only weep as judgment takes its course.

D. The gift of mercy is especially precious because it comes, not only from one human being to another, but it also comes from God’s heart and God’s hand through his servant—and that servant may be you or me.

A Christian, grieving about all the suffering in the world, cried out to God, “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you do something?”

And then he heard God say, “I did do something. I made you.”

APPLICATION

When we read about the sorrows of the world—or watch the stories on TV—we may feel that we are helpless to do anything at all.

But there are things that even we, who are old and limited, can do.

We can pray. Every day I include in my prayers the homeless, the refugees, the immigrants, those who are sick, those who are dying, the lonely, the blind and lame and mentally afflicted—and others I can think of who are suffering in our trouble-filled world.

We should pray for those we know—and those we don’t know. And God tells us to pray not only for our loved ones, but for others too.

Jesus said, “If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you. Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. …But love your enemies…and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:32-36).

So let’s widen our prayers even to include people on the other side of the earth—people we will never see.

And we can give as we are able. Jesus insisted that his followers be generous people.

There are many good causes. There is some good work that is calling to you. The best work is not necessarily the one that sends you the most fund-raising letters. But all of you know of those who are doing good work in the world in the name of Christ. They need help. They need your help.

Jesus said, “Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. …For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6.20-21).

I know, you worry that maybe your money will run out before you die. I think about that too.

But giving generously is an opportunity to trust God for our future needs—a venture of faith. If faith risks nothing, it is not really faith.

CONCLUSION

One more story about mercy. This one includes both meanings of mercy—compassion and forgiveness.

An American soldier tells this story about an experience in Viet Nam. He writes,

“We had just searched a small village that had been suspected of harboring Viet Cong. We really tore the place up—it wasn’t hard to do—but we had found nothing. Then just up the trail from the village, we were ambushed.

“I got hit and don’t remember anything more until I woke up. A very old Vietnamese woman was leaning over me. Before I passed out again, I remembered having seen her in the village we had just destroyed. I knew I was going to die.

“When I woke again, the hole in my left side had been cleaned and bandaged, and the woman was leaning over me again offering me a warm cup of tea. As I was drinking the tea and wondering why I was still alive, a helicopter landed nearby to take me back. The woman quietly got up and disappeared down the hill” (Random Acts of Kindness, p37)

Let me close with one of my favorite scriptures. It is from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. It doesn’t contain the word “mercy,” but it all about mercy, and it sums up much of what we have found in the Beatitudes so far:

“As God’s chosen ones, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, patience.

“Forbearing one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

“And above all these, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:12-14).