My Yoke Is Easy

Today on Renewing Your Mind because she was just so she is very unsold, she is tomorrow so this is what Jesus is like and he's inviting us and is allowed into his own self interpretation of who he is and what he is like if we were in Christ we have left behind as our sleep and taking on a new we have pledged allegiance to our in the transaction. We have submitted to his rule today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson reveals just what kind of King Jesus is this message titled my yoke is easy and on my assigned seat is my yoke is easy on my bottom is light on, you will immediately recognize these words. Also, as the wants of our Lord Jesus Christ, and especially those of you who have an Episcopalian on Anglican background. You will recognize them as the so-called comfortable words of our Lord Jesus Christ from the end of Matthew's gospel chapter 11 and verse 29 unfettered. He tells us that his yoke is easy and his Barton is light, and if we come to him.

We will indeed find rest for our souls. If I told you that I had spent time and new. One of the most famous instantly recognize people in the world if you knew me well enough to invade my private space. First of all to ask me who that was on the assumption that the statement was true. I think you would then go on to ask two questions.

The first would be well how long have you known the, because that would be an indication of probably how well you knew them, and then the second question would be like him to the first question you would say to me, what are they really liked what are they really liked.

Think about those questions in connection with our Lord Jesus Christ.

How long have you known him, probably for many of us are relatively easy to answer for the second question is a little more testing is tell me what she is really like. Tell me what he is really like. It's a question that arose as intent in the upper room, the question arises, Jesus shortens the father of this is a disciple who's been with Jesus we think for about three years and remember Jesus response to him. Have you known me so long time.

Philip yet you do not know who I really so if a non-Christian shoe indeed is a Christian, Asher, tell me what Jesus is really light.

I don't mean give me the theology that are specific categories of interpretation which I don't think anyone would doubt. I regard as of immense value, but what to ask the question, what is he really liked how how what would you do with the answer but just how do you like to think about Jesus. But what is Jesus really like on these verses at the end of Matthew chapter 11 stand out in Matthew's gospel in a sense they stand out in the synoptic Gospels as a place in which unfairly singular striking way, the Lord Jesus himself tells us what he is like this is what I like. This is who I am.

This is what you will find in me. This is what you will discover from me this, you will experience in me. This is Jesus: answer to the question Jesus what are you really like and I'm using the present tense. I'm not asking the question what was Jesus like I'm dictating the question on the basis of Hebrews 13 verse 8D is the same yesterday today and forever. That is not longhand for Jesus is eternal truth of matters. That's a statement underlining that the Jesus of whom we read here in the Gospels as he was yesterday from the perspective of the author of Hebrews as he was yesterday, so he is today, and so he is tomorrow so this is what Jesus is like and he's inviting us and is allowed into his own self interpretation of who he is and what he is like with an astonishing statement. Really, there's a kind of special kind of paradox written into the very things that he says about himself. He is he is meek and lowly in heart, yet this is one of the places where he says I am meek and lowly in heart, if I say that to you. I am meek and lowly in heart, you say to me you are lying through your teeth you would never say that kind of thing you have no self-knowledge, is a wondrous perfect knowledge of himself opening himself to those who are listening to him who are barred from the good work. Heavy laden volunteers. He is telling us who he really is on the implication of matters is if we if we don't know him like this. We still do not know him. How long have I been with you and yet you still do not know me, Philip Hanoi, of course, that that the amount just in our lives is the degree to which we are unlike him because it's part of the dynamics of relationships between people but the people we come to know best of the people that we become most white so how does Jesus tell us who he is. Well let me pick out the strands of his teaching in these verses for us to explore together for a few minutes this morning. We know what Jesus is like. First of all by the invitation, but he offers us the invitation is come to me. What was interesting about the invitation is those to whom the invitation is extended at times in my life teaching and theological seminaries.

I've had inquisitive students coming up to me and saying if you were able to have a dinner party at the end of the week. Then they put four theologians from the history of the church. Would you invite usually kind of surprised by the people who would be at my table and look at Jesus guests, most of whom the invitation doors come. He says to me, you who labor under heavy laden, you who are we, you who are Barton those are not the people you want to shreds and I guess because most people are enormously hard work.

Those people are enormously difficult to love. Most people are enormously difficult to draw out to unpick to untangle the complexities that make them weary and heavy laden, and bargained and sore. Jesus says that's the people he wants to invite.

It's amazing.

It tells you so much about the kind of Savior he really is is interesting just to think about this for the moment because the language he uses is deliberately general.

When I was able to tell from this text exactly what was that, but Bunton these people for was it, but will press them and made them feel they were heavy laden made to feel that they were somehow or another you all to something that was uncomfortable and irritated and caused friction and distress we can speculate what it was with these people can speculate that they are socially oppressed that under Roman domination that there oppressed by taxation and by tax collectors with them. We can speculate on the underlayer bargains because they are conscious that they cannot live up to the law of God. Nevermind the fantasies interpretations of the law of God, but I can imagine in our world. People might read a passage like that and say, well, that was fine for Lambert is no longer fighting in our society because we have got rid of the law of God. But as you remember the apostle Paul points out to more than one occasion when he's writing to Gentiles, who do not have the law of God's basic response to them is you may not have the written law of God, you cannot escape having been created as the image of God and so long as you're the image of God created to function according to the law of God when that will manifest itself in your life.

The same kind of weariness. The same kind of bargain because of what the Scriptures call your sin and your iniquity, your transgression, your rebellion of what you may experience is your failure is interesting, isn't it when people have the integrity of some academics of had to bring out the statistics that result from throwing away the law of God and all the energy and the expense that not a poison to teaching young people who have no sense of who they are because they've never been reared in the under guard during the significance of being created as the image of God for the joy of God for the presence of God and for the glory of God. Every single substitute with our Western governments put in its place you can be anything you want. You are a prince you are a princess billions in the Western world spend on raising people of their sense of failure and simply accelerating their sense of failure. I rather suspect that has not been so much self harming in the Western world since there were monks living in monasteries seeking to deal with their sinfulness by self harming all the world knows that by other names. That's exactly what Jesus speaking about here. There is no other one in whom dignity can be restored, from whom bargains that we feel can be taken away than the one who is meek and lowly in heart, and was able to give us rest for our souls from our sense of failure from our sense of guilt.

This is a wound, our society cannot heal and the more the individual and the society seeks to heal her by itself inventions the worse it makes the wound. Fajardo becomes New York to bear in our grandchildren Morales to say that we cannot bear this bargain but our grandparents and parents have placed upon us.

So it really means something special to us to be Christians in this world to know that Jesus is the light of the world that Jesus alone is the one in whom two truths can be found and to whom we can come because he invites those who about them and heavy laden to come to him, he will give us rest. One day he will remove all these problems. One day will no longer be weary, even the oldest person in the room will no longer be weary, but even now he says if your bargained heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest and that of course is the second thing to notice that he says there's the invitation that he offers us and then there's the promise that he makes to us. I will give you rest. I will give you rest. Seeming how would we find out what Jesus meant to find out what Jesus meant when he said come to me and I'll give you rest, not by looking up the dictionary, but by coming to understand Jesus biblical theology take a few minutes to delve into the way in which I believe Jesus must've understood the Scriptures that enabled him to say I exclusively will give you rest. And when I say rest you know what I'm talking about rest in God. The rest of our souls we abides in God and the resting of creation so that it functions as a perfect creation of God with full or no irritations in the way in which the cosmos functions rest was how God created the world entity created the world with so much less that on the seventh day he was able to rest but wonder if you ever thought about it like this the day of rest which was the seventh day was Adam's first day arrived, he was created on the sixth day. He apparently went to sleep. Twice one occasion this beautiful woman appears that location.

The seventh today appears and he begins his life less than many of our forefathers believed it was on the day of rest. Adam fell very frustrated man did not apply for the single day was the text they tended to hang on. Actually, the narrative gives you the impression that he is created in the world but is functioning so beautifully. He's given this movement to live in harmony. He's given this world to enjoy the told but that is what to do because he's put in a garden and needs to extend that God and to the ends of the out and the next day as the Sabbath is a kind of indication to them that we are to live the whole of their working life with their family extending the garden to the ends of the algebra position of rest and we even understand that doing with that is only from a strong position of stability unrest that we can create energy and force. Otherwise everything is unstable and so from one point of view, we might say that in the sites in the crosshairs of the serpent that is the destruction of the rest harmony between Graham and the heavenly father. The harmony between each other. The harmony between them in the cause loss of the whole of the rest of the Bible narrative is a story of the restlessness of our sinful condition, with the promise that one would come bring rest. It would be a rest that would be bought at a bloodied price. Genesis 315 and you remember a couple of chapters later on when Norse parents of their baby boy. You remember why they called him Nora. The name nor signs of fairly light three Hebrews 4 rest intimately said about him. Perhaps this is the one who will bring rest of them just making that they were understanding what they knew of divine revelation God had promised a Redeemer, a confidant who would restore rest and they were desperately hoping their baby boy might be that seed of the woman who would lose and crush the head of the serpent. Even this is one fuel was crushed and blues and that was a sense in which art of judgment that was a new rest created through nor that it disintegrated again member has a picture of the Exodus is of God bringing them out of their bondage under the yoke of slavery is see that background and what Jesus is saying here and he brings them into the land of rest.

He makes a covenant with them and it's it's it's often a puzzle to people flyers.

It that the signing of that Mosaic covenant is part it's the Sabbath, not just the weekly Sabbath, but the Sabbath Sabbath's the six years and then the seventh amendment, 77 years in the year of Jubilee and what God is doing is creating form a can of pop top picture book in which they can move in the week or in the years are in the half-century is without being reminded of what God has promised in his great gospel promise is that he will bring rest and when Jesus says come to me, you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We sing the hopes and fears of all the centuries the fulfillment of all the promises I am the one in whom the promises of God are yes and amen on this promise that God gave in Genesis 315 is oldest promise in Scripture is most difficult to keep promise in Scripture's longest lasting promise in Scripture is being fulfilled in me. I am meek and lowly in heart. He says come with me.

I'm inviting you, you labor your heavy laden, and I will give you rest to notice the ones that precede all this might be uncomfortable once, but the words that identify him as to who he is. I thank you for the Lord of heaven and earth that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes because this was your gracious will. And then he goes on to say this, it's really staggering, all things are being 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 is coming to the poor humbled with pain about the they anxious the distress the Pharaoh on the file anything just come with me and we say trembling to him, but where you go into the presence of God.

What shall I say and it's as though he says just say what I say about father and mother was there is nobody in the Old Testament.

Whoever says that they lived in days of wonderful revelation and days of the shadows that is not a single saint in the Old Testament who is described as coming to God and saying on the father is the meanest and coolest believer in this new covenant page and we think trembling wealth going into the presence of the one who is seated on the throne in all his majesty of the Lord Jesus says I've come to make him known to suggest when we Sabbath in order to fund the Lord Jesus cares for and loves his people.

We have been listening to Dr. Sinclair Ferguson today on Renewing Your Mind.

He was speaking at our first London conference. The theme was the light of the world are speakers reminded us that living the Christian life requires us to walk in the light, the light of the knowledge of Jesus. Each of the seven sessions from this conference pointers to core truths of the Christian faith, equipping us to live as lights in the world we be happy to send you a digital download of this entire conference when you give a donation of any amount to later ministries also send you a paperback copy of a very helpful book is titled a little book on the Christian life is a new translation of a section of John Calvin's institutes of the Christian religion. It's been used by generations of believers to help them on their journey with Christ, you can request both of these resources with your gift of any amount by going to Renewing Your Mind.org or by calling us at 800-435-4343 the speakers at our London conference included Alastair Bragg, Albert Mohler, Michael Reeves, and others. This conference is a good reminder of why your gifts to later ministries are so important that we're recognizing opportunity after opportunity around the world to share the life-changing truth of the gospel. So your gifts are vital in making that possible that again we invite you to request the two resources were offered today all seven messages from our London conference on the light of the world, along with the paperback copy of the little book on the Christian life. Remember, again, is 800-435-4343 enter web address is Renewing Your Mind.org, but tomorrow will continue this Damon Dr. Michael Reeves will be our speaker with a message titled, take up your cross will join us Thursday for Renewing Your Mind