Matthew 11:25-30

Last time I was up here, I finished my series on the prayer of Jesus for his disciples in John chapter 17. I found the time I spent studying Jesus’s prayer to be helpful to me. But I didn’t have any text that would be next. As I read and listened to various things I was struck by the text we will talk about today.

I was compelled by the invitation I saw from Jesus here and - there was another recorded prayer of Jesus. Please open your Bibles to Matthew 11:25-30. We will eventually read all of chapter 11 this morning, but for now let me read just the final section.

Read Matthew 11:25-30

Let’s take a second to let Jesus’s invitation sink in a little. Come to me. I don’t want to let this little phrase just pass by. Where have we seen Jesus use the word “Come” and what has happened when he did?

In John 1, Jesus called two disciples with the phrase “Come and you will see”. And these men had their lives turned upside down. If you will let me expand a little, in Matthew 4 Jesus comes across Simon and Andrew working with their father and Jesus calls to them with “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The word there is “follow” but I’d argue that it is saying the same thing. Get up and come here to me and stay with me as I move through the world. And Matthew 4 finishes with “Immediately they left their nets.” I think we often attribute the response of the disciples to the men. We will ask questions like “Would you drop everything to follow like they did?” But, I believe it is more about Jesus speaking the word “come” and “follow.” They followed because he invited them and His words have power to change.

Another example of using the word “come” is in Matthew 14. The disciples are in the boat in a raging storm and they see a man walking past them on the water. And at one point Jesus says to Peter, “Come”, and Peter gets out of the boat and walks on the water toward Jesus.

And at the end of John in chapter 21, we see Jesus restoring Peter by giving him three opportunities to answer that he loves Jesus (to counter the three denials) and when the scene ends, Jesus sums up with “Follow me.” Again, the power that allowed Peter to come and follow was not in Peter, it was in Jesus’s words.

Well here in our text this morning, we see again that Jesus calls people to himself with the words “Come to me.” The power necessary to do that for each of us is not in us. The power needed is in Jesus’s words. In fact, Jesus specifically says “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden.” Is he calling on us to take more effort, or to expend more of our power? No, he finishes with, “and I will give you rest.”

Then we get to the verse that captured my attention. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

There is a lot of discussion about our hearts. About us needing to love Jesus with our whole hearts. The Old Testament prophets talked about the diseased state of Israel’s heart and how God was going to change their hearts from stone into living flesh, and write His law directly on their/our hearts. And we read a lot about God’s heart. However, (according to JC Ryle) this is the one verse where we hear about Jesus’s heart. And this is not a place where someone is assuming something about Jesus’s heart. He is telling us Himself. This is the whole of what he says specifically about His own heart. He is gentle and humble in heart.

A quick aside about words. The King James version does not use the word gentle for this verse, but rather it uses the word meek. I could just wave my hand and say ah, “they’re synonymous.” But I did take some time digging into this, because I’m about to preach a whole sermon on gentleness and that isn’t the word used in the KJV. And I believe this is a result of word meanings changing over time. The current definition of meek is “quiet, gentle, and always ready to do what other people want without expressing your own opinion.” What? No way. That last part doesn’t match what I read that Jesus does. But the meaning from Samuel Johnson’s dictionary in 1755 is “Mild of temper; not proud; not rough; not easily provoked; soft; gentle” Ok, that definition I see matched at each point with how Jesus is described in the Bible. One more thing, gentle at the time of the KJV also didn’t mean what it does now. The first definition of gentle in Johnson’s dictionary is “Well born; well descended.” As in “gentleman.” A truly British idea. I can see why the King James translators avoided that word then. Because it is totally against what Jesus has been saying in this chapter. So I’m going to use gentle today just because it is the more common word for us now.

OK. Gentle. If you got two words for your tombstone, is that one you would choose for yourself? Jesus chose to describe his heart with two words and gentle was one of them. The other one was humble. Jesus the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, One with the father. Described his heart as gentle and humble.

For us, gentleness is at best a second tier virtue. Loyalty, courage, integrity, personal responsibility. These are the virtues that make America great! Humility, gentleness, compassion, quick to forgive, yeah OK, if you force us, we will call those virtues also.

But, what about in the church? Is gentleness a first tier virtue in the church? It is in the kingdom described in the Bible.

Paul tells Timothy in 1 TImothy 3:3 that an elder in the church should be “not pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable” or in a different translation, “not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome.”

In 1 Peter 3:4, women in the church are called to “be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.” Some women bristle at that but isn’t Peter just saying to have a heart like Jesus’s, a heart of gentleness and humility. That is a high call, and I would say the same to a man in the church. Well, actually, that is exactly what I’m doing right now.

But it is not just leaders and women, In Ephesians 4:1,2 Paul, says “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love.” Again this is almost the same wording as Jesus. All humility and gentleness.

And finally, go back to the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” I’ll repeat from a previous sermon, the fruit of the Spirit IS. There is one fruit and gentleness is a characteristic of it. If I bear the fruit, I will be gentle.

Ok, so as Christians, first, we are invited by a gentle and humble Jesus. He tells us to “Come to Him.” And the fact that we can come does not say anything about us, but it speaks to the power of Jesus’s words. And second, in verse 29 he specifically says to “Take up my yoke and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.” And we see that this is a call repeated by Jesus and other authors of the New Testament. Being gentle is not optional if I am to call myself Christian.

Now we should do exactly what he tells us to do and learn from Him. Let’s not assume that the world will teach us what it means to be gentle. But let’s look to Jesus to learn that. So today I am going to read the rest of chapter 11 and we will look to Jesus to define what it means to be gentle.

Read Matthew 11:1-30

So there are six parts to this chapter. I’ve spent my time so far in the last section. Let’s take the sections now in turn.

First (v 1 to 6), we have John the baptizer in prison, hearing that something is going on out there around Jesus and because he is stuck in prison he sends his disciples to Jesus to get the news from the source. And when they get to Jesus, he hears the question of John and he answers it truthfully.

I think John here is an example of gentleness. This is often taught as John was unsure and sends his disciples to ask for him because he couldn’t leave. But J.C. Ryle in preaching about this notes that it doesn’t actually say that John had doubts about Jesus being the Christ. He has been pointing to the Christ and in the gospel of John he says, “He must increase and I must decrease.” But here he still has disciples and they have sometimes clashed with Jesus’s disciples. Ryle thinks that John sent his disciples to hear the answer to his question for themselves from Jesus. Both may have been the case, but for today in talking about gentleness I think Ryle’s explanation is helpful. Because in it I think we see John being gentle to his disciples. He is not berating them for still following himself, but rather sends them to hear for themselves from Christ. He is providing for them a gentle slope to Jesus.

The second section (v 7 to 15) is after John’s disciples have received an answer and Jesus speaks to the crowd about John. He asks three times, “What did you go out to see?” or “Why did you go to listen to John?”

He tells them they went out there to John because they realized that something was happening that could not be explained in human terms. John was a prophet of the living God. Jesus goes even farther, he says, “Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” What?! The phrasing of that raises questions. He doesn’t say that among those born to human fathers. That we could understand because that would exclude Jesus. But, Jesus actually says “born of women.” Jesus was born of a woman. What?! I don’t know. I do see in verse 14, that Jesus says that, “John himself is Elijah who was to come.” Well I agree that the return of a prophet who had not died would be a great man. There are ways to explain this, like Jesus was actually God, etc. but I want to let Jesus’s words stand without too much of my manipulation.

I want to note one other thing in this section from verse 12. Jesus says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.” Another way to say that might be “the kingdom of heaven is forcibly entered, and violent men seize it for themselves.” That is about as far from gentleness as you can imagine isn’t it? Again this raises lots of questions, but here is what I want us to take away. If we do not receive the kingdom by the gentle invitation of Jesus, then the only other option is this. To try to take it. What do I mean by try? I mean we may take something. We may force our way on the church in this world, but we will not have the kingdom.

How might we try to take the kingdom? Let’s look quickly at Matthew 23:4. Here Jesus is warning the crowd about the scribes and Pharisees and says, “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.” I’m reminded of something Pastor Rod said on Tuesday. We are not to judge others. We are to look on our own heart. Based on this text I would go a little further. I am not to put any additional tradition, any additional requirement, any pet litmus test, or any burden on anyone else. To do so is to try to violently take the kingdom. If I ask a question like, “is his repentance real?” I am putting an additional burden on that person. That person may eventually satisfy me, and join me in my “church” but that church is not the kingdom of Jesus.

Look ahead at Matthew 11:30, “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

A yoke distributes the burden between at least two animals. Jesus invites us to take His yoke. And his judgement of the scribes and Pharisees was that they added burden on people but would not join in carrying it. Jesus is saying they claim to offer salvation but they won’t join in the burden. But I (Jesus) am salvation because I do join you in the burden.

But don’t misunderstand me. The answer is not that we should take some of the burden. But, the fact that we will not shows that we are not the source of salvation. The problem is that we are putting up our own barriers to others, and so we are usurping Jesus’s role. By adding and judging we are attempting to take the kingdom by violence. But we don’t end up with the right kingdom.

Don’t add to the burden of those around you.

In the next section in our text (16-19) Jesus, comments on how neither John nor Jesus were good enough for those around them. I’d speak more about this, but I think Ron covered this quite well last week, although not specifically this text.

So section four (20-24). Jesus, who just called John a prophet, speaks a prophetic oracle. He pronounces a doom on the towns where he has been teaching. He says they have not responded and so it will be better for clearly evil towns than it will be for them.

A note on those evil cities. I don’t think I need to say much about Sodom. That one is sufficiently infamous that we all know the score there. But what about Tyre and Sidon? Are these just non Hebrew towns that Jesus picked at random? Well, no actually. There is a specific reason for naming these two towns. Let’s go back to 1 Kings 16:30-33.

30Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. 31It came about, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him. 32So he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he built in Samaria. 33Ahab also made the Asherah. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

So Tyre and Sidon were the cities of the Sidonians in the time of king Ahab. And his father Omri made a treaty with the Sidonians and it was sealed with his son Ahab marrying the daughter of the king of the Sidonians, Jezebel. Recognize that name? She was trouble. This marriage did more to pull the people of Israel from the true worship of God, well more than all the kings did before them.

So these were not just some random cities, these were cities who through diplomatic means had made a very determined attempt to take the kingdom of heaven by violence.

And one more link, who shows up in 1 Kings 17:1? Elijah! Who Jesus just said had come back in the person of John. Remember who Elijah was? He pronounced a doom to Ahab that there would be a drought because of his marriage to Jezebel and all that came as a result of that. And Elijah was the one who stood toe to toe with Jezebel, and brought fire from heaven in a standoff with Jezebel’s prophets.

These are not random cities. He is telling the people who have been listening to John and then Jesus himself, that they have more to answer for than Jezebel’s father and people and the people of Sodom. He is saying that despite having heard the true message of salvation that they have just stood aloof and they have been distracted by the details and the styles of the messengers they have been distracted from the pronouncements they heard. They have not been impressed by either. And despite hearing the good news from both they continued to try to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. And so they would pay the price for that.

Can we see ourselves in these cities? I can see me. I have heard the living gentle invitation of Jesus and I would rather there were obvious theological boundaries and I say, “Oh, it isn’t enough to accept the invitation. You need to change your whole life around or I won’t accept you into my church. You need to not only accept Jesus’s invitation but you need to buy into my interpretation of this or that doctrine for me to believe you have changed.” And by doing this I do violence to the kingdom of heaven. It ceases to be God’s church and it becomes just my church.

When people see me getting excited, when they see me getting worked up, am I getting excited about the gentle invitation of Jesus? Or am I worked up over this or that doctrine that I won’t let go of.

When people see me getting excited, when they see me getting worked up, am I getting excited about the rest that I have received from Jesus? Or am I worked up over the evil that has overtaken the world and maybe has actually harmed me personally today.

I have tried to stick to “I” and “me” language here because it is certainly too true of me, but I hope that won’t keep you from honestly looking at yourself, also.

Well, we have one more section (v 25 to 27) that we haven’t looked at yet. This is the prayer of Jesus. Ever listen to a pastor who will be preaching and then right in the middle he will start praying? That is what Jesus does right here. He finishes his prophetic oracle and goes straight to prayer. “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” And He goes on to say that All things have been handed to Jesus and no one will know the father except Jesus and those that Jesus reveals Him to. As in John 17, Jesus claims all knowledge for Himself. He claims to be the only gateway to salvation. He is fleshing out what he said in John 10, “I am the door.” and in John 14, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, but through me.”

We as a church should be inviting all who we meet to meet Jesus. We in the church need to think like John the baptiser, because our role is to point to Jesus, and when Jesus reveals himself to someone, we the church need to decrease so that He may increase. Is that how we think of the church? How often do we invite people to come to church or to worship, instead of inviting them to Jesus? I think we start with the right idea. We really want people to hear Jesus’s invitation and the church is a place to hear that invitation, that good news. But does the church invite people with the same gentle and humble invitation that Jesus gives? Or does it saddle them with more burden?

Why would we heap on burden? I am not saying that we are being coldhearted, getting pleasure from adding burden to those around us. We know that Jesus provides rest and we want people around us to see that rest, but sometimes it just seems like they don’t feel burdened. Sometimes they don’t act weary. So we want to make it so they feel the burden and might add burden to that end so that they will recognize how needy they are. But that is not gentleness. That is usurping Jesus’s role. He is the one who “wills to reveal the Father.”

Jesus invites each of us every day, to “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.” What fantastically gracious words of invitation.

Each day when I look and just see weariness and feel heavy-laden, Jesus is there to call me to himself anew. Can you imagine the gentleness and humbleness that must require of Jesus to do that every day for each of us?

So what have we learned about being gentle in this chapter?

Gentleness holds out an invitation, a true invitation, to Jesus. Gentleness is wanting those around us who are over-burdened and weary to receive the rest Jesus offers. That is, gentleness loves those around us who we see burdened and weary. Gentleness is not adding to the burden of those already carrying a heavy burden or even those who do not feel burdened. Gentleness is wanting the rest we have received from Jesus for everyone we meet, whether they are friend, family, rich, poor, beggar, immigrant, church goer or enemy of the church. Gentleness is not judging anyone but myself, because when I judge that someone is not worthy, then I stop telling them about the rest Jesus offers to them.

Preached at Holiness Fellowship on November 28, 2021.