Key Text: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest."
Many times we have felt comforted by reading our key text listed
above. Perhaps we have said, "There is the invitation here
in Scripture, the call to come to the Savior and find rest."
However, have we really looked deeply into these three verses?
Have we really studied these two expressions of the word, "rest"?
The Savior gave us a twofold lesson. The word, "rest,"
is found twice in the three verses, so there must be a lesson
in each expression of this word.
In this sermon let's be diligent seekers and miners of the golden
nuggets of the truths of God's Word as we study the two rests.
The invitation is given in verse 28, our key text. Who is invited
to come? All! This is the gospel invitation; it is the world-wide
gospel call for sinners to come to the cross and find rest. Whatever
you may think of predestination and what it may mean or involve,
this by no means narrows or diminishes the extent of the gospel
invitation. The message of the gospel is to be preached to every
creature under the heavens, and it is addressed to all the laboring
and heavy laden. "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be
preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and
then shall the end come." Matthew 24:14. "And I saw
another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting
gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every
nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,"
All who labor and are heavy laden may come unto Him. In these
words the Savior extends the invitation to every human being.
ALL may come. The word, "all," meaning anyone, anywhere
in the whole wide world.
However, before we learn, before we take His yoke, we have to
come. There are many other things to follow, but the first event
is the invitation to come. To come is to leave something, someone,
or someplace and advance to something else, to another position.
The greatest of all the advancements, the greatest leaving behind
is the old position. We leave behind the position of being in
Satan's family and become sons/daughters of God. We change families!
What do we leave behind? We leave behind all our self-reliant
efforts to save ourselves. We leave behind our sins. We leave
behind anything and all things that we have trusted in for the
forgiveness of sins. We leave behind anything that would entangle
us to keep us from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us take
our sins to Jesus, but leave the old world, the old way and our
worry behind.
Remember the story of Elisha and Elijah where Elisha left behind
all he had to follow the man of God, Elijah. "So he departed
thence, and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing
with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth:
and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. And he
left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray
thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee.
And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee?
And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew
them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen,
and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and
went after Elijah, and ministered unto him." I Kings 19:19-21.
Elisha celebrated leaving things behind. So much so that he had
a party! He called the people together, burned the plow and the
plow lines. He boiled the oxen and gave it to the people for a
feast. Then, leaving things in the past, Elisha arose and went
to find Elijah.
Remember blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52. Bartimaeus cast his
garment from himself and went to Jesus. The garment could have
hindered his coming to the Great Physician; therefore it must
go. He left the garment behind.
Come means to come now. And this "come" is not to come
tomorrow or next year, but at this present time. Come means to
come to me, not to John or to the Pharisees who will instruct
you in the traditions of men and in the jots and tittles of the
law. Come past all of these and arrive at the feet of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is one word, "come." It is not "do."
It is not even come and then do. It is simply come. Without money!
Without merit! Without preparation! Just come!
Charlotte Elliott wrote that great hymn of invitation, "Just
As I Am":
"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou biddest me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
So, friend, come as you are to Jesus and the promise will be fulfilled,
"I will give you rest." The promise means:
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me..." Verse 29.
In verse 28 we are released, set free, free from a yoke, and now
in verse 29, we are to pick up another yoke. The first yoke was
heavy, it was a burden, but the second yoke is easy and light.
The first yoke was yours, the second yoke is the yoke of Christ.
The second rest is rest after rest. The first rest is rest from
the burden. The second rest is rest in Christ which is beyond
all we ask or even think. The second rest is a rest in serving.
The person who is a Christian will not find rest in being idle.
If we are to rest we'll need to have His yoke, walk with Him and
share His burden. Christian service is Christian giving which
brings rest, joy and peace.
We are to enter upon this service with joyful hearts. The promise
does not say, "Bear my yoke when it is laid upon you,"
but "take it." Each one has something to do. We must
take His yoke and enter His service. "What can I do to help
in the service of the Master?" is the question of all God's
children. What should we expect?
Why? Because the offense of the cross never ceases, but remember
this. Rest for the Christian is found in courage and grace. Paul
states in II Corinthians 12 when he asked to be freed from his
thorn in the flesh, "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient
for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness..."
II Corinthians 12:9.
Now, the reason for such treatment is because we are pilgrims,
strangers in the worldly society. We are twice-born people living
in a world of once-born people, but we are more than conquerors
in Christ. His grace is promised.
"Let me give you another symbol. A little stream flowed through
a manufacturing town, and an unhappy little stream it was, for
it was forced to turn huge wheels and heavy machinery, and it
wound its miserable way through factories where it was dyed black
and blue until it became a foul and filthy ditch, and loathed
itself. It felt the tyranny which polluted its very existence.
Now there came a deliverer who looked upon the streamlet and said,
'I will set thee free and give thee rest.' So he stopped up the
water-course, and said, "Abide in thy place; thou shalt no
more flow where thou are enslaved and defiled.' In a very few
days the brooklet found that it had but exchanged one evil for
another. Its waters were stagnating; they were gathering into
a great pool and desiring to find a channel. It was in its very
nature to flow on, and it foamed and swelled, and pressed against
the dam which stayed it. Every hour it grew more inwardly restless.
It threatened to break the barrier, and it made all who saw its
angry looks tremble for the mischief it would do ere long. It
never found rest until it was permitted to pursue an active course
along a channel which had been prepared for it among the meadows
and the cornfields. Then, when it watered the plains and made
glad the villages, it was a happy streamlet, perfectly at rest.
So, our souls are made for activity, and when we are set free
from the activities of our self-righteousness and the slavery
of our sin, we must do something, and we shall never rest until
we find that something to do. Hence in the text you will be pleased
to see that there is something said about a yoke, which is the
ensign of working, and something about a burden, which is the
emblem of enduring. It is in man's mortal nature that he must
do or endure, or else his spirit will stagnate and be far from
rest." (Taken from Sermons by Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
pp. 445-446."
We have rest from our burden, and now we have rest in Christ.
Our rest in Christ is our looking to Christ, not ourselves, for
inner peace. This rest in Christ is found as we search for it.
The first rest is called in the school of theology, "justification,"
and the second rest is called "sanctification" in the
path of obedience.
We have rest through our learning of Him. All prejudices and all
preconceived ideas must be laid aside. Let us learn of Jesus and
unlearn our own thoughts. It is His learning and His mind that
we receive with the second rest. We learn by:
Consider that your labor will be very easy if you catch His spirit
of meekness. The lowly heart says, "Not my will, but Thy
will be done." What I want to hear Christ say is, "Well
done, good and faithful servant." That is enough. Our blessed
Lord exemplified humility as He related to others. He did not
strive, nor cry, nor cause His voice to be heard in the streets.
"'Learn of me, and ye shall find rest.' My brother, if you
cannot rest in poverty, neither would you in riches; if you cannot
rest in the midst of persecution, neither would you in the midst
of honor. It is the spirit within that gives the rest, that rest
has little to do with anything without. Men have sat on thrones
and have found them uneasy places, while others on the rack have
declared that they were at rest. Justification gave you rest from
the burden of sin; sanctification will give you rest from molesting
cares, and in proportion as it becomes perfect, and you are like
your Savior, your rest shall become more like that of heaven."
(Sermons by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, pp. 452).
"Never mind; take Christ's yoke on you; live to serve him;
take Christ's burden; make it a point to bear all things for His
sake, and you will not be affected either by praise or censure,
for you will find rest to your souls in surrendering yourself
to the Father's will. If you learn of Jesus you will have rest
from the fear of men. I recollect, before I came to London, being
at a prayer-meeting where a very quaint brother prayed for me
that I might be delivered from the 'bleating of the sheep.' I
understood it after awhile; he meant that I might live above the
fear of man that when such a person said, "How much we have
been edified today,' I might not be puffed up, or if another said,
'How dull the discourse was today,' I might not be depressed.
You will be delivered from 'the bleating of the sheep' when you
have the spirit of the Good Shepherd." (Sermons by
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, p. 453).
The yoke of Christ is light, easy and serviceable. And He invites
us to keep step with Him, to be as He is and do as He does.