This sermon was preached to Grace Church Guildford on 5 February 2023. The audio recording of the sermon can be found below along with the transcript.
Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most famous artists in history. His greatest painting is commonly said to be The Starry Night. Even if you’ve never heard of it, you’ve probably seen it. It is a canvas of dark blue sky with swirls of golden yellow light for the moon and stars. Sarah and I saw it in person a few years ago and it really is beautiful, a remarkable work of art. And yet the more you understand about its context, the even more remarkable it becomes. For this depiction of a serene night-time scene was painted at a time of great personal distress. A few months before painting it, Van Gogh had a psychological breakdown during which he cut off his own ear and had to be put in an asylum for his safety. The calm scene depicted in The Starry Night is actually the view that he had from his room window in the asylum. It is a remarkable painting taken by itself, but it becomes even more impressive when you realise the context that it came from.
There is a part of our passage tonight that is often seen as one of Jesus’ great masterpieces. I’m sure you noticed it. In 11:28, we read some of the most wonderful words Jesus ever said: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." They are the kind of comforting words you see on a fridge or written in a card. It’s a verse that is well known to many Christians, to many of you here tonight. And yet, if I had asked you before you came, what was happening in Jesus’ life when he said these comforting words, I wonder if you could have told me? Or if I had asked what does Jesus speak about immediately before he says those words, would you have known? You see, like Van Gogh’s Starry Night, these words in 11:28, that are truly remarkable when taken by themselves, only become more remarkable, more amazing, when you realise the context in which they are set, the difficulty that Jesus is experiencing, and the truths which he has been teaching.
I think Matthew himself explicitly highlights the importance of our passage’s context in 11:25, by introducing it with the phrase "at that time". We will see he does the same in 12:1 for similar reasons. By doing so, Matthew ensures that we see a direct link between what has just happened and what Jesus is about to say. What has just happened? Well, if you remember last week, after demonstrating who he was in Matthew 8-9, Jesus sent out his disciples in Matthew 10 to tell others the good news of his arrival. In 11:1, Jesus joins them in this mission, goes out himself to give even more miracles and messages, to further demonstrate who he is.
And yet rather than believing he was the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus is rejected by his generation. Despite all they hear and see, they refuse to believe, continue to doubt. And so, last week, Jesus warned them in 11:20-24 of the judgment they would face as a result. With great revelation, comes great responsibility. All we know about Jesus only increases our guilt if we continue to doubt him. That’s the context of our passage, the point at which Jesus says these words in 11:25-30. It is "at that time" of rejection, that time of people refusing to believe, that Jesus responds with the words in our passage. His response is in two parts: (1) A Hidden Revelation (11:25-27); (2) An Open Invitation (11:28-30).
1. A HIDDEN REVELATION (11:25-27)
What does Jesus do when he is rejected? How does he react when people refuse to believe? While you or I may have been tempted to give up, or even to angrily lash out, Jesus responds to persecution with prayer. Like David before him in Psalm 109, Jesus can say: "In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer." Jesus sets an example, which Christians should surely follow, that when people come to speak against us, we should go to speak to God about them. It makes sense that Jesus should do so, for back in 5:44 he said, "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you".
And yet, when we start to examine Jesus’ prayer, I think we find something we aren’t expecting. We might have thought that Jesus would pray for God to soften their hearts, to reverse their rejection. And yet, instead of coming with such a petition, here we see Jesus comes with praise. In 11:25 we read: "At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father...". It’s remarkable, isn’t it? In the middle of persecution, Jesus begins a prayer of praise! And as we read on, it gets even more extraordinary. For Jesus says: [READ]. Jesus refers to two different groups of people. On the one hand we have the "wise and learned", the sophisticated and self-sufficient. On the other are "little children", a term Jesus often uses to refer to his disciples, those who come to him in childlike trust and simplicity. One group think they know everything they need to know already, the other, like little children, are happy to learn. Here Jesus is praising God for how he treats the proud and the humble, the lofty and the lowly, the pharisees and the fishermen.
How does the Father treat these two groups? Well, Jesus says that he has hidden "these things" from one but revealed them to the other. From the context, "these things" is clearly a reference to the truths Jesus has demonstrated in Matthew so far, the reality that he is the Christ, the Messiah, the promised Saviour come to save his people. To the proud and wise, these truths are hidden by God, so they cannot see them. Whereas to the humble and simple, they have been revealed by God, they can see Jesus for who he really is. So far in Matthew, we’ve had countless examples of this. The religious leaders, Jewish crowds and cities, are all somehow blind to who Jesus is. Despite all the evidence, they cannot identify him. Whereas it is the lepers, sick and tax collectors, gentiles and outcasts, who see what everyone else misses. The Father hides the good news of Jesus, the Gospel from some, and reveals it to others. And we will see this truth through the rest of this section of Matthew, indeed when we get to Matthew 13, Jesus will explain this truth is why he starts teaching in parables.
Why? Why does the Father hide these things from some and reveal them to others? It can’t be because the humble deserve to see and the proud do not. The rest of the Bible is clear we are not saved because of anything in us. So why then, as it is often asked, does God choose to save some and not others? Well, we get an answer to that in 11:26. Or rather, we get as close to an answer as we can ever get. For in 11:26, Jesus explains: "Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do." The pleasure of God is the place where all such enquiries must end. As Jamie showed us in Romans 9 a while ago, thus far we can go and no further. It pleased the Father to make the Gospel a Hidden Revelation, and so Jesus praises him for it.
Christian, what about you? Over these last few weeks in Exodus, we’ve heard a lot about God’s sovereignty. And we see the same kind of truths here in Matthew 11 tonight. How do such things sit with you? Can you praise God for both his salvation, and his judgment? For both hiding and revealing the Gospel? Would you be able to join in with that song that the Israelites sung in Exodus 15 this morning? Would you be able to say ‘Amen’ to this prayer that Jesus prays here?
Friend, if you would struggle to do that, if you wrestle with the idea that God could choose some and not others, if you have concerns with what the Bible says about election or predestination, then it is OK to be honest about that. O brother or sister, follow the example of John the Baptist last week, ask your question, admit your doubts, so that Jesus can deal with them. For we see here that we should be able to praise God for such things. If Jesus can praise God for these truths, should we not do so as well. Surely if these things please God, then they should please us too. Far from being a source of contention, the doctrine of election, God’s sovereign choice, his hiding and revealing, should in fact be a source of praise among his people. More than that, Jesus seems to see it here as a source of peace.
When he is rejected by his generation, condemned by the crowds, what truth does Jesus turn to? See here, that Jesus draws comfort from God’s choice. When he is rejected, Jesus is able to rejoice, for he knows that God’s purposes are coming to pass, knows that if the crowds are blind to who he is, then the Father has hidden the Gospel from their eyes.
Brothers and sisters, no matter how you feel about such truths right now, see here that the doctrine of election, is not a hard pill for us to swallow. No, it is a soft pillow upon which we can rest our head. For when we share the Gospel with others, and they reject it, we know God’s perfect will is being done. When we see churches close and Christianity dwindle, we are still able to praise our God, for we know no matter what, he is in control. Even if our family members turn away from Christ, here we see that we can trust God with their eternal destiny, even if we only come to that conclusion after shedding many tears. Friends, see here that God’s sovereign choice, is a truth that should bring God praise and can bring us peace.
If in 11:26, Jesus tells us why the Father hides and reveals, in 11:27 he tells us how. How are these things revealed? At the start of 11:27, Jesus answers: "All things have been committed to me by my Father." Jesus has been given all things, including these things, these truths of the Gospel. Why has Jesus been given these things? Well, in the second half of 11:27, we see it is because of his relationship with the Father. For he continues, "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son...".
What Jesus claims here is astonishing. He declares that he is the divine Son, the second person of the Godhead, who exists in a relationship of perfect and complete knowledge with the Father. Only the Father knows the Son. Only the Son knows the Father. Yet as we read on, we see that Jesus, the Son, has been given the mission, the role, of revealing these things to us, of including us in this divine knowledge. He says, "no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
How can we enter a relationship with the Father? Begin to know God? How are Gospel truths revealed to us? Well, here we see that they are revealed through the Jesus. Again, is this not what we have seen in Matthew so far? As Jesus has went around, yes these things have been hidden from many. And yet, he has clearly chosen to reveal them to some, for there are some who believe, who come to know the Son, and therefore know the Father. Jesus is the revealer of the Father. He has knowledge of God, because he is God. And he brings that knowledge to us. As he explains in John 14, "if you know me, you know my Father, if you have seen me, you have seen my Father." Or as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 4:6, "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God [is] in the face of Jesus Christ."
The Father, according to his good pleasure, hides the Gospel from some and reveals it to others. How does he do this? See here he reveals it through the Son. Jesus is the one by whom we come to know God. He is the meditator, communicator between God and man. The one in whom heaven and earth meets. In 11:25, Jesus speaks of A Hidden Revelation – The Father hides the Gospel from some, and yet reveals it to others through his Son.
2. AN OPEN INVITATION (11:28-30)
I was only 10 when my big sister kindly took me to the cinema with her friends. I don’t think I knew what we were going to see, I was probably more excited about the popcorn. However, from the moment the opening scene of LOTR: TRK appeared on the screen, I was transfixed. A full 3.5 hours later, I left the cinema as JRR Tolkien’s biggest fan. However, as it was the final film in the trilogy, there were many things I didn’t understand that first time I seen it. I got the main thrust of the story, but there were details I missed, depths of meaning that escaped me. Now that I have read Tolkien’s works and watched all three films countless times, almost every scene, every line, has greater meaning, taken on much deeper significance. It is still the same movie, but because I understand the context better, it means so much more to me now. Brothers and sisters, 11:28 is still the same verse as we read earlier. And yet, I trust that having noted the context, understood the flow of thought in 11:25-27, 11:28 will begin to take on new depths of meaning. That every single one of these wonderful words will make more sense, become more precious. For like Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, the context only makes this verse even more remarkable.
Think of that first word there in 11:28. "Come." Come. Given all that has Jesus has experienced: the rejection of the crowds, the refusal of his generation to believe, is it not remarkable that this is the first word he says? In 11:20-24, he pronounced judgment on his generation in the strongest, severest, way. And yet what is his very next word to them? It’s "come". Friends, do you see here that no matter what we do, Jesus’ heart and hands remain open to us. It doesn’t matter how many times you have rejected him. It doesn’t matter how far away you have wandered from him. It doesn’t matter what depths of sin you have indulged in. Jesus’ first word to you is always come.
"Come to me." I think when we read this verse by itself, there are so many wonderful phrases, that "to me" gets a bit lost. And yet, the context clearly makes this the key phrase. What has Jesus just said? In 11:27, he declared that he is the divine Son, the one to whom the responsibility of revealing the Gospel, knowledge of God, has been given. That’s the foundation Jesus lays in 11:27, that causes him to go on to say, "Come to me". I am the revealer of the Father. I am the one who can bring you into a relationship with God. I am the one who stands between earth and heaven. So come to me.
One insight that helped me see this was realising 11:27 isn’t part of Jesus’ prayer. Did you notice that? In 11:25-26 Jesus prays to the Father, but in 11:27 he is no longer speaking to the Father, but is instead speaking about the Father. Jesus isn’t praying in 11:27, he is speaking to the crowds. Before he makes this open invitation in 11:28, Jesus explains to them in 11:27 that he can reveal the Father, bring them to God. Jesus proclaims himself to be the one through whom the Father choses to reveal these things. And so calls them, urges them, to come to him.
Brothers and sisters, do you see how well these two doctrines of election and evangelism sit together? How the two parts of our passage complement rather than contradict? Hidden Revelation: God hiding the Gospel from some but revealing it to others. Open Invitation: Jesus calling all to come to him. People often make a great deal of there being tension between these two things. And yet, here we see that Jesus can speak of them in the same breath. Spurgeon was once famously asked how to reconcile these two things. And he wisely replied he didn’t need to reconcile them, for there is no need to reconcile two friends!
And is that not what we see here? For they sit side by side. Indeed, we see that one actually forms the perfect foundation for the other. Because the Father chooses to reveal himself to some through Christ, we can urge people to come to Christ. Election is the foundation of evangelism. God’s Hidden Revelation is the context for his Open Invitation. O yes, at the start of our service, in Deuteronomy 29:29, we were reminded that there are secret things that belong to God. And yet, see here what has been revealed to us. See here that saving knowledge of God is found exclusively in Jesus Christ. See here that the Father chooses to reveal the Gospel to some through the Son. Why does he reveal it to some and not others? Well, we can leave such secret things to the Father, and simply spend our time calling people to come to the Son. For that is what has been revealed to us.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened...". Who is it that Jesus calls? It’s not the wise and learned, no it’s the weak and burdened. Jesus does not call those who have their lives perfectly, neatly put together, but rather those whose lives seem to be falling apart. Jesus reaches out to sufferers and strugglers, those for whom life is a burden, each day a slow grind. Those who feel they cannot go on, that are overwhelmed. I think this includes being overwhelmed by the normal stresses and strains of life. And yet, in Matthew, we see that the greatest burden comes not from life, but the law. Comes not from living in God’s world, but from failing to keep God’s Wors. Later in 23:4, he will describe how the religious leaders use the law "to tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders". Jesus seems to understand that because we have broken God’s rules and lived our own way, we are all like that character Christian at the beginning of a Pilgrim’s Progress, carrying around a great burden of sin and shame on our backs.
Do you feel that tonight? Weighed down by guilt? Burdened by your sin? Worn down by your falling short, worn out by your failure to love God and others as you ought. If so, see here that far from this guilt, this burden, keeping you away from Jesus, it is in fact what qualifies you to come to Jesus. It is our weakness, our neediness, that means that we should, must, come to him. For Jesus is a Saviour who specialises in sinners, calls the weary and burdened to come. As we sang earlier, "All the fitness he requires is to feel your need of him." Friend, the only thing you need in order to come to Jesus, is to know you are a sinner and that you need a Saviour.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Here we see that Jesus is the very Saviour that we need. He supplies exactly what we lack: rest for the weary, an easy load for the overburdened. However, lest we think this is just physical rest or phycological peace, he clarifies in 11:29 that it is "rest for your souls". It is spiritual rest, a relationship with God that is characterised by rest, rather than restlessness, by peace rather than hostility.
Next week in Matthew 12, we will see that this is the reality the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, always pointed to. However, here Jesus concludes his open invitation in what at first seems a rather strange way. For having promised the burdened rest in 11:28, in 11:29 he tells them to, "Take my yoke upon you". A yoke was a harness that animals, such as oxen, would wear to pull a plough or a cart. Jesus offers the overburdened, a burden. To those who are weary and worn out, Jesus hands a harness for work! It seems bizarre!
This may seem strange language to use, but the term "yoke" was commonly used at the time to refer to teaching of a Rabbi. In the same way that animals served a master by putting on a harness, disciples followed a teacher by submitting to their teachings. This is clearly what Jesus means here, for he goes on to say in 11:29, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." Jesus is urging us to take on his teachings, to become his disciples. And yet, far from this yoke wearing us down, we are told it will in fact give us rest: not rest from all work, but rest while we work for him. For in 11:30 he declares, "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Jesus says his burden is not really that burdensome. This is in complete contrast to the teaching of the Pharisees, as they tried to keep the law well enough to earn salvation from God. Later in Acts 15:10, reflecting on this, Peter will call the Law of Moses "a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear". We see the same idea in Galatians 5:1. However, here, Jesus says his rules are refreshing, his restrictions give us rest. As one writer has put it, to tell us to take on the yoke of Jesus, the burden of being his disciple, "is like telling a drowning man that he must put on the burden of a life jacket." (Gentle & Lowly) Or perhaps apologising to a bird for the weight of their wings!
Why? Why is Jesus’ yoke easy and his burden light? How does following his teachings give us rest? Well, the only line we haven’t looked at so far this evening gives us the answer. In 11:29, Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart."
Throughout the book of Matthew we read much about Jesus’ life, are told all about his words, given lengthy description of many of his works. And yet, this is the one place where we are told about his heart (Spurgeon). In our passage tonight we have been able to glance for a moment into the mind of God, hear something about his sovereign choice to hide and reveal, but finally here in 11:29, we see something even more amazing than that, for here we can stand and stare into the very heart of God. And we learn that though he is Lord of Heaven and Earth, he is gentle and humble in heart. What does that look like? What does that mean? Well as we have seen, Jesus shows us what God is like, it is the Son who reveals these things to us. And when we look at Jesus, do we not see one who is gentle and humble in heart?
Friend, think of him in eternity past, the second person of the Godhead, the divine Son, and yet he did not count equality with God as something to be clung onto, but instead set aside his glory by taking on human flesh. When you see the baby lying in a manager, you see the heart of God.
See his heart in this passage, watch as he stands there, with the crowds condemning him, his generation rejecting him, still he stands with his arms open, his heart ready to receive them, calling "Come to me...".
Fast forward to the night he was betrayed. Disciples deserted him, Judas handed him over for execution, and yet there is no blaze of divine anger, no striking down of the enemies who surround him. Instead, the Son of God is led like a lamb to the slaughter, and he did not even open his mouth.
Watch him on the cross, condemned for a crime he did not commit, the perfect spotless Son of God treated like a common criminal, mocked and beaten, laughed at and derided, and yet even in that moment his heart was still open to those who were hurting him, he was still praying for those who persecuted him, Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
Do you not see there that he is gentile and humble in heart? That even if you had been the soldier driving nails into his hands, he would still be saying to you, Come. Come to me and I can give you rest.
Christian, you do not serve a harsh master. You do not follow a cruel leader. You do not have a heartless teacher. No, your Saviour is one who is gentle and lowly in heart, and so the burden of serving him, following him, obeying him, should be easy, should be light, [...]
ALEXANDER ARRELL