Singing once again the help of
God. I'd like you to turn with me to the chapter that we read
together. The Gospel according to Matthew chapter 11. And the
text you'll find in verses 28 to 30. Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and
ye shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden
is light. We saw this morning of those
four men who brought their friend to the Lord Jesus Christ and
the Lord Jesus, seeing their faith, seeing the evidence of
the Father's work in them, took their friend and healed him of
his sin. We know that Christ, as we saw,
Christ has the authority as God to forgive sin and to cleanse
people from all unrighteousness. And as the Lord Jesus here is
speaking to those who were around about him once again, he rebukes
the various cities and towns for their unbelief and hardness
of heart. He, as we saw this morning, there
were those who followed the Lord Jesus Christ with that genuine
faith. They saw him for who he was.
They saw him as the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Lamb of God
to take away the sin of the world. And they believed in him and
they trusted in him. There were those then who saw
the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ like the scribes and the
Pharisees, and yet their hearts were hardened. They accused the
Lord Jesus Christ of blasphemy, accused him of being the devil,
the worker of the devil. And Jesus rebukes those who had
such light shined in their faces, yet through the hardness of their
heart remained in unbelief. And he lists some of them. Kureyzan,
Beseda, for if the mighty works which were done in you had been
done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago
in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall
be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment
than for you. For thou, Capernaum, which art
exalted into heaven, shalt be brought down to hell. For if
the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in
Sodom, would have remained unto this day. But I say unto you,
that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the
day of judgment than for thee. And so the Lord Jesus is revealing
a specific truth of those that have had a greater light and
yet through hardness of heart and unbelief will experience
the greater wrath of God. The times of Sodom and Gomorrah
there was no real warning. There was the angels of God,
there was the pleading of Abraham who sought to plead on behalf
of Sodom and Gomorrah if there would be some righteous found
in that city. And yet the only ones that were
saved were Lot and his daughters. We see Nineveh at the preaching
of Jonah, how the whole city turned in repentance unto the
Lord in sackcloth and in ashes. Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord
Jesus said, if they had had such ministry, if they had had such
great evidence as the miracles that were laid before Bethsaida
and Capernaum, they would have turned from their sin. But they
had no such opportunity in the light of the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ. God manifests in the flesh, coming
to earth, coming to his own people who should have been looking
for him, should have been looking at the evidences that Christ
was laying out before them still in the hardness of their heart,
rejected him, and in doing so, in doing so, reaped greater judgment
upon themselves. It is a great blessing to sit
under the ministry of the Word of God. It is a great blessing
to be brought up into a family that reads the Scriptures and
prays together. You think of the millions and
millions of children in our day who may have only heard of the
Lord Jesus Christ by swear words, by blasphemy, having no realisation
of the great consequence that is beyond the grave for those
who continue living in the darkness. And so it's a great responsibility
for those who have heard the word to believe the word, to trust
in the word. The Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the scribes loved themselves. They didn't want their life changed. They loved the ceremonial system. They loved the praise that they
experienced from other people. They loved being greeted in the
marketplace with the titles of honour They loved the respect
that their hierarchy brought to them. They loved the authority
that it gave to them as they came to the Word of God, as they
sought to fence the Word of God with extra laws that they created
to try and make this perfect society. And in doing so, the
Lord Jesus Christ says that they gave people a greater yoke. They
gave people a greater burden to bear. they made people a greater child
of hell than they themselves. They misunderstood all that God's
law was really for. It was not a law for boxes to
be ticked, It wasn't a law to show people how good they were,
how holy they could be, how much they could achieve. But God's
law was there to show people their sin, to show people the
holiness of God and the standard God requires for somebody to
enter into his presence. It wasn't a yes we've done that,
yes we've done this, yes we've achieved that and now God is
going to accept me. The law of God was placed to
reflect the holy character and nature of God so that those who
looked up to the law saw their sin and their shame and their
inability and God's holiness and his greatness. And so Jesus then is speaking
to those who have looked to the law and found no comfort there,
found no help there, found no ability to save themselves there. He's speaking to those that feel
themselves to be laboring and heavy laden, those who have no
rest. And he invites those to come
and to take his yoke. The yoke, through scripture,
it is a symbol of being united together. and the children of
Israel were taken to Egypt. In the book of Leviticus it tells
us after their delivery that God broke the yoke of that slavery,
of that bondage. If you remember Jeremiah, in
his prophecy he came to the temple with a yoke and he said that
they were going to be yoked together with their enemies, that God
was going to put them again into slavery. He tells them that he's
going to yoke them together with a yoke of iron and that under
that yoke of iron they will be crushed. And so the law of God, though
it is holy and perfect, reflecting the character and nature of God,
yet it is like a yoke, a heavy yoke, by which a person plows
alone It provides no help, no strength, just condemnation and
fear and trembling. If you look at the law that God
gave to Moses and the experience that the people of Israel felt
at that time in Exodus 20, And the Lord spake
all these things, all these words, saying, I'm the Lord thy God,
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. I have broken the yoke. I have
delivered you and I have set you free. You are no longer under
that suppression. You are no longer yoked together
with that enemy anymore. I have delivered you and I have
set you free. I've broken that yoke and set
you free out of the house of slavery. Thou shalt have no other
gods before me. You remember Egypt was the place
of many gods. As we saw with the Centurion
and the Romans, a place of many gods. Yet now God reveals to
them that he is the one true living God and that they're to
have no other gods before him. They were not to make any idols,
they shall not make unto thee any graven images or any likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, all that is in the earth
beneath, all that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them nor serve them, for I am the Lord
thy God and I am a jealous God. visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation
of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them
that love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord thy God will not
hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. We look around
us today, what do we see? the people of the world, how
do they use the name of God? How do they use the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ? They break this commandment that
they should not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,
use it in an empty way. But even for the people of God,
we become so used to it. at hearing it all of the time
everywhere we go people are blaspheming you go into the park even the
little children they blaspheme the name of a God that they don't
know they speak the name of the Lord Jesus Christ emptily without
any knowledge of who he is without any understanding that one day
they must stand before him and give an account of all that they
have ever said done or thought Remember the Sabbath day, to
keep it holy. Six days, shout thy labour and
do thy work. At the seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work,
nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that's within thy gates. For
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that
is that in them is, and rested on the seventh day. Wherefore
the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Honor thy
father and mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which
the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt
not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear
false witness against thy neighbor, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
house, thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. And all the people saw the thunder
and the lightning and the noise and the trumpet and the mountain
smoking when the people saw it they removed and stood afar off. And so the law of God is a perfect
law revealing the character and nature of God himself. And as the Lord Jesus says as
he speaks to those who are under that law, that law requires perfect
obedience. book of James tells us that he
who has broken one part of God's law he is guilty of all of that
law. It was a law that declared the holy
nature and character of God but that was the only way by which
someone may enter into a relationship with God. The people of Israel
were God's people. They were the nation that was
chosen above all the nations upon the face of the earth. They were the light by which
they were to declare the glory of God and that others may see
the true and living God and be drawn to him how he desires to
be worshipped. But through their sin and disobedience,
They shamed the name of the Lord. That was the only way by which
God declared that he could be known was through the sacrificial
system, the ceremonial system, by adhering to his commands. And anyone outside of that covenant
could come in They would be a proselyte. Think of Rahab. Think of Ruth. You think of the eunuch who was
on his way back from worshipping from Jerusalem going back to
Ethiopia. He had believed and trusted in
the one true living God and therefore his whole life now was taken
up with obedience to that law. obedience even to the ceremonial
law of God causing him to take that journey all the way to Jerusalem
from Egypt, from Ethiopia. And therefore it was a yoke. It was a yoke. The law was like
a yoke, a bondage to the people of Israel. And that law required
perfect obedience. Adam, when he was created, was placed
under a covenant of works. He was called to obey God and
live. as he obeyed God he would experience
that blessing and favor of God. As he disobeyed God he would
experience that disobedience and displeasure from God and
we see how that the Lord chased him from the garden because of
his rebellion. And everybody who is born into
this world is born as Adam underneath the covenant of works to live
by the law of God. And God's law requires that perfect
obedience. We are married to the law. We
are under that law. As I said it reflects God's holy
nature. And the standard by which God
has set for a sinner to enter heaven is total perfection. And as we are born into this
world marked by sin already, we sin because we are sinners. Sin doesn't make us sinful, we
are sinful already. We sin because we are corrupted
by sin. And so there is no hope, there
is no chance, there is no way that you and I would ever be
able to obtain the holiness that God requires to enter into his
presence because he has said nothing that defiles when enter
into the kingdom of heaven. And so we are under the judgment
of God because we have broken his law. We are married to it and there
is no way of escape unless we die. We can either die and go to hell
or we can die with Christ. He who is dead has been freed
from the law. Therefore, when a person dies
by faith, they are married to another.
They become married to the Lord Jesus Christ. They are no longer
under the covenant of works. They are now under the covenant
of grace. As Jesus says, this is the New Testament, the new
covenant that I bring by my blood. No longer is it ceremony, ceremony,
ceremony. No longer is it law, a binding
law and legalism. Now there is freedom in the Lord
Jesus Christ. There is freedom because Christ,
the Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled every line and every dot of the
law to create a perfect righteousness for all who will trust in him. The perfect spotless Lamb of
God. And so as the Pharisee slaves
away day by day by day, seeking to tick all the boxes to be perfect,
yet every single day failing and failing and failing, Jesus
says, come to me. You imagine every day you take
an exam. You young people, I know you've
taken exams recently and you know how stressful it is. And
you want to get good grades. But every day you take an exam
and in the morning you see you've failed. The next day you take
an exam, in the morning you've failed. You've failed. Every
single day you fail. Well that's how it is as you
stand before the holy law of God. Every single day you fail. You sin. You sin. You sin. And you can never enter into
the presence of God in that condition. You can never enter into the
presence of God still bound by the covenant of works because
the scripture tells us the soul that sins it must die. Does that affect you? Does that hurt you? Does that hurt your pride? Have
you thought that you were a pretty good Christian? Have you thought
that you had obtained a righteousness of your own? That everything
you do, God must be being pleased with you? Well, I'm telling you
that outside of Christ, still in the covenant of works, there
is nothing that you can do that can ever please God. You are
separated from Him. You are ploughing alone. And even God is against you. you are still under the law.
But thanks be to God, the Lord Jesus Christ came under the law
to redeem those who are under the law. And so the law of God, though
holy, yet shows you and I that we are sinful. It shows us God's
holiness and our sinfulness. It is an exam that we cannot
pass. We will always fail. Yet the
Lord Jesus Christ did not fail. Every day he passed. Every day
he cleared. Every day it was a hundred percent. Loving God with all of his heart,
soul and mind. Having no idol. Having no unpure
thought before come across his mind. Outside Having been born
of the woman, yet still under the covenant of works, he lived
perfectly, and then died in the stead of
sinners. And so he says, come unto me. Are you laboring under the law
this evening? Have you realized that you've
failed today's exam? Have you realized that every
day that you look back that you have been laboring and laboring
and you've failed? Are you heavy laden with the
burden of the law upon your back, God's frown upon his face? Have you no rest? We looked at
the other day, didn't we, of the dove. The dove found no rest
for the sole of her feet. So what did she do? She went
back to Noah. She found rest on the hand of
Noah. She found rest in the ark. And
so Jesus says, come unto me, all you who are laboring and
are heavy laden, you like the dove flying out of this world,
finding no rest for the sole of your feet. You're heavy laden,
you're weary, you're tired. Well, Jesus will give you rest. He says, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me. The Bible tells us that we are justified by faith. knowing that man is not justified
by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. So there's no hope outside of
the law of Jesus Christ. Guilty is the condemnation but
there is justification the removal of sin, the removal of guilt,
removal of the charges against us in the Lord Jesus Christ,
for he has fulfilled the law on behalf of his people. You
and I, we can't plough alone, but Jesus Christ ploughed alone. He achieved what man cannot achieve. fulfilling the whole law of God.
And now he says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. The gospel yoke. Being yoked together with the
Lord Jesus Christ. He has taken all of the strain. He has taken all of the works
out of religion and dealt with it all of himself. not by works
of righteousness that we have done, but it's by grace, by the
undeserved love of Christ. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me. The other week we looked at Psalm
25. And David says Teach me thy way, O Lord,
and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. David desired to be taught, meaning
that he had a humble spirit to absorb the things that Christ
or the Lord was teaching him. He wanted to be filled with wisdom. He wanted to know the way that
the Lord was leading him. He wanted to be taught in that
way. Lead me in a plain path. But Jesus here says take my yoke
upon you and learn of me. Now you can teach somebody something
but that doesn't necessarily mean that they will learn what
you have taught them. You may teach somebody how to
whistle. But that doesn't mean that they
can learn how to do it. You may show them. But that doesn't
mean that that knowledge will be imparted to them and they
will be able to do what you have taught them. And so Jesus says, yoke yourself
together with me. and learn of me. Now you can
learn something without a teacher. You can learn something by experience. You can learn things that you
glean along through the path of life. Things that you didn't
know when you were young but through life experience you have
gained knowledge. You have learnt them. No one's
actually come alongside and said, this is what you must do. And so Jesus says, come alongside
me and learn from me. When you live with somebody it
is then that you really know what that person is like. you're
with them 24 hours a day. And as people live together they
begin to understand how each other works. They begin even
to rub off on each other. They may become like each other. And so the believer is to come
alongside the Lord Jesus and to be yoked together with the
Lord Jesus as he is the stronger, the more able, we are the weaker,
we are bound together with him. And so he says, learn of me. Gain experience of walking with
me. I looked up the word to learn. It says it's like practice and
experience. Jesus says learn of my meekness. So we see when the Lord Jesus
came into Jerusalem meek and lowly riding upon an ass and
then as we saw him turning over the tables in the temple we see
that meekness is not weakness and meekness is not anger but
meekness is an ability to control and restrain our nature. There are times when there must
be that holy righteous anger There is that time when there
must be that submissiveness. Meekness walks straight down
the middle. Not anger, not weakness, but
balanced character through the influence of the Spirit. And
as we walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, as we yoke together with
Him, we learn of His nature by the influence of His Spirit in
us. I've told you before of the yoking
together in Kenya, of the stronger cow and the weaker, that the
bull leads, he directs, he's in control. And so it is with
the believer that Christ is the strength. He is the lead, that
he is the one that directs. He is the one that guides. There
is that humility, that lowliness of heart, that humility, that
the mind of Christ dwell in you, that humility, that lowliness,
that not seeking for the pre-eminence, the hierarchy,
but remaining in that lowly, lowly of heart and you shall
find rest for your souls. So he says, learn of my meekness,
learn of what it is to walk together with me by practice and by experience. Day by day as we walk with the
Lord Jesus Christ we are learning from him and of him. He says, my yoke is easy and
my burden is light as the law was a heavy burden. The Lord
Jesus Christ took the full weight of the law, took the full wrath
of Almighty God and now ushers in this wonderful gospel, the
freedom in Christ Jesus by which the believers are not bound by
the law but they are yoked together with the Lord Jesus Christ. And
they are yoked together not with a chain but they are yoked together
with love. If you love me you will keep
my commandments. And so as we look to the Old
Testament, we see the law of God, we see the holy nature and
character of God, we can take those godly principles and bring
them over into the New Testament and we can live and know all
that the Lord can live and know By all that the Lord has revealed
to us in the scriptures, we can know the way by which he delights
his people to walk. He says, Jesus says, the whole
of the royal law, James says, the royal law is summed up in
this, that you should love God and to love our neighbours as
ourselves. So maybe you are weary this evening. then come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you are labouring, seeking to obtain a righteousness by
yourselves, you will never obtain it. You cannot obtain it. It's
impossible. You're a sinner by nature, therefore
you're excluded from the kingdom of God. But come then to the
Lord Jesus Christ. All ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and you will find rest for your soul. for Christ is
the ark by which the dove found rest for the soul of her feet
and you will find that the yoke of the gospel is easier than
the yoke of the law for Jesus says my yoke is easy and my burden
my burden is light. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen. Let's sing together our concluding
hymn, number 198. 198. Amazing grace, how sweet
the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but
now am found, was blind, but now I see. Hymn 198. The blazing rays of sinful sun have saved
a wretch like me. ? The world's first ghost of
heaven found ? ? Was blind but now I see ? ? Was raised and
took my hope to be ? How precious did that grace appear! His words have said, I have already
come. His grace has brought me safe
thus far. His flesh and blood shall fail,
and mortal life shall cease. I shall possess ? Life of joy and peace ? ? The earth shall soon be so bright
again ? ? The sun for ever to shine again ? ? God be with you. ? Almighty God, we thank Thee for
the fulfilment of the law through Thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we thank Thee for the freedom
that there is in the Gospel. We thank Thee that we can be
yoked together with thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we pray that we may be granted that hearing ear this evening. Lord, do bring us under that
condition of a need of a saviour. Do work in our hearts to make
us realise that we are under that covenant of works and of
our own selves there is no hope. Yet we thank thee for that gospel
invitation in Christ to come unto him all who are weary and
who are heavy laden, that they may find rest for their souls.
We ask then, Lord, that thou dismiss us with thy blessing.
Do remember Tom as he prepares himself for Wednesday. Lord,
do grant him that ability to rightly divide thy word. And
now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of
God the Father, with the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit,
to be with you each now and for evermore. Amen.