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.