Matthew 11:16-30

Transcript

As you know, we study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel, and we do have extra copies if you didn’t bring one with you and you’d like one to follow along. Raise your hand up real high, somebody will drop one off at your row, your aisle. Right there in the middle, couple over here on this side aisle as well, by the windows, if we could.

And as we are continuing our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we’re calling it “The King and His Kingdom”. And indeed, as Kim mentioned earlier, we’ll be in Matthew chapter 11, if you want to turn there. Some questions to throw out, to be thinking about as we read this passage, and as we consider the riches that it contains. And by the way, it ends with three of the most beautiful verses in the entire New Testament, to me anyway.

And I love the way this speaks really to all of us, but as I read through it and marinated in the passage myself, I was thinking about the world we live in. And maybe like me, you wonder why so many people seem so chronically frustrated, chronically restless, chronically dissatisfied, and hopeless. And maybe like me, you occasionally think, well, what does the gospel have to say to those people? What does the gospel have to say to me when I feel covered over by the weight of despair in this world? And what is the disposition of Jesus to us in those kinds of seasons?

And I love the way that Scotty Smith and pastor Matt and pastor Tommy all three over the last Sunday, been able to watch online and see that great things that the Lord had spoken through them, and leading us up to the passage we’re in today. And I just want to encourage you, this is sort of the intentional design of our church and our teaching team. And that’s that no matter who’s speaking here, you are going to study the Bible. That isn’t the case everywhere. And I recognize the need for thematic sermons and stuff like that. I’m not disparaging those at all, but I just want you to know that no matter when you come here, that’s what we’re committed to, is we’re committed to going verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through books of the Bible.

Our method is what we call verse by verse teaching. Our aim is exposition. We like to let the passage speak and say what it says. And this one today is so amazing and awesome. So I’m grateful, as the other three men have led the congregation through the passages that lead up to this one, I feel like these questions are going to be on your mind, like they might be on mine. What is Jesus’ promise to us, when we turned to Him, when we believe the gospel? And we’ll get there today.

Let me pray for us, before we open the text and read, this is a prayer for illumination. Awaken us, stir us, even startle us, oh God, by your presence. Open our hearts and our minds to your spirit, moving among us. Silence in us, all voices, but Your own. Speak through Your word as we turn to You. And give us a clearer vision of Your truth, a greater faith in Your power, and a more confident assurance of Your love for us, in Jesus’ name, amen, and amen. 

Matthew 11, 16 through 30, if you’ll join me there. Let me pull this up here so that I’ve got access to what’s on the screen for you. I know it’s here somewhere. I know I will find it. I’m not finding it.

So I’m going to let you run the slides, there we go. Techno Job, I don’t really know what I’m doing all the time.

So Matthew 11, let’s look at verse 16 and… Oh, by the way, 15 is so awesome, the way that ended last week: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” I don’t know what you do with your ears, what you think ears were for. They’re an odd bit of creation, aren’t they? I mean, have you ever noticed people’s ears? Take a look at the ears of the person in front of you right now.

I know you can’t look at your own, but next time you’re in the mirror, look at your ears. And some of you might be the kind of people that think, “I got pretty normal ears.” Some of you might be the kind of people that go, “I don’t like my ears, kind of wish I got to have those ears over there.” And what do we use our ears for? What do we do with those? They’re holding up my glasses right now. That’s kind of cool. I like that. Some of you are wearing earrings, and so ears are good for ear rings.

But Jesus says they’re for hearing. And he gave us two of them, which is awesome. And you’ve probably heard that old saying, “He gave you two ears in one mouth, use them in that proportion.” And I don’t, myself, I don’t often do that, do I. Well, Jesus is saying, “Be active, be intentional with your ears. You have ears to hear, then hear this. To what shall I compare this generation?” He’s talking about his own generation. And he is really talking about the religious leadership as he walks on the Earth, in the first century there in Israel.

“It’s like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call out to other children. And they say, ‘We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance. We sang a dirge and you did not mourn.’ John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The son of man…” That’s

Jesus’ most often used self reference, that title, lifted right out of the book of Daniel, where he’s essentially… every time he says that, he’s saying, “I’m the Messiah.” The son of man came doing the opposite that John the Baptist did. John didn’t eat or drink, Jesus eats and drinks.

“And they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man, a drunkard, a friend of tax gatherers and sinners.’ Yet, wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” And so Jesus here using a remarkable contrast and comparison here, a little setting of things alongside each other so that we can get a picture of his view of what’s going on in the world right now. And the generation that He’s walking among, the religious generation of that day, and that time. They’re like children that simply cannot be pleased.

Were you ever that way? I was. I’ve talked to my mom. She has many stories, like just completely unpleasable as a child, sometimes. Getting those little moods. “You can play a dance. You can play a dirge. It doesn’t matter. I’m not moving. I’m not going. I’m not listening. I’m not listening,” all that stuff. And that’s the way this generation is. And no matter what you do, whether you’re John not eating or drinking, or you’re Jesus eating and drinking, they’re still going to find some way to criticize you.

These are the original church curmudgeons. These are the first ones that yelled, “Get off my lawn.” And there they are. Well, they began to approach the cities in which most of His miracles had been done, because they did not repent. Why is He reproaching them? Because they did not repent. What did He do in those cities? He performed a lot of miracles. Were they just a side show? No, we’ve pointed out before Jesus miracles, as you study them throughout the gospels, you see that they, not only display His power and authority, but they reveal His compassion. They affirm His identity. And they should inspire repentance in worship.

But he’s saying here in these cities, that didn’t happen. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!” When Jesus says, “Woe to you,” I don’t think that’s a good thing. It reminds me of when Jesus said to Peter, “Get thee behind me Satan.” I’m like, if Jesus calls you Satan, that’s not a good thing. That’s not good at all.

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For the miracles had occurred in Tire and Sidon.” And by the way, those are gentile cities. If the miracles I performed here in you, good old Jewish cities, if those had been performed in those gentile cities where you wouldn’t expect a fine faith, “they would’ve repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” Meaning they would’ve really repented. It would’ve been just openly visible. It would’ve been complete repentance. “Nevertheless, I say to you,” you Jewish cities that I did perform my miracles in, “it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.”

“And you, Capernaum,” and this is the city right on the…all of these cities are actually on that northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. We’ll visit that in March, if you’re coming with us. We visited Capernaum before the ancient ruins. They are remarkable. It’s just an amazing site to see. But Capernaum is the little village, little town that Jesus hubbed out of for most of his Galilean ministry. And so he performed many miracles there, and we read about them as we go through the gospel records.

“You, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven! Will you? You will descend to Hades for if the miracles that occurred in Sodom…” Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? Sodom and Gomorrah sort of represent wickedness, and the wrath of God on wickedness. “If the miracles performed in you, Capernaum, had been performed in Sodom, it would’ve remained to this day.” It wouldn’t have been destroyed. “Nevertheless, I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.”

Wow, those are harsh words. So we have this assessment, verses 16 through 19, of the current climate spiritually. And then we have these woes, these pronouncements of warning to these cities that had great spiritual privilege, but had just completely disregarded the spiritual privilege they had. And He points that out the way they’ve been indifferent, like children. The way they’ve been belligerent against Jesus, in terms of their official response. And he says, “Other cities, where you wouldn’t have even expected them to respond, those cities would’ve responded.”

And Jesus knows this. See, he’s showing to us that he actually knows some things that have not been done. He didn’t do miracles in Tyre and Sidon and Sodom like he did in Bethsaida,

Chorazin, and Capernaum. But he knows, as the son of God, what the response would have been had he done that.

Well, I love 25 and following, and then I’ll just highlight three things for you. So I get my 25 minutes exactly right here today.

“At that time, Jesus answered and said…” And I love this by the way, two verses that are a prayer of Jesus. You learn a lot when you hear people pray. You learn a lot about those people. You hear tenderness. You hear their understanding of what kind of God they’re talking to, and what kind of God they believe in you.

You hear about whether or not they see themselves in a position of need. Whether they see themselves in a position of wanting God’s will to be done or their will to be done. You hear that, when you hear people pray, so often.

Here’s one of Jesus’ prayers, “I praise the, oh, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you did hide these things from the wise and the intelligent, and did reveal them to babes. Yes, Father, for thus, it was well pleasing in your sight.” That’s just amazing to hear that prayer.

It tells us the disposition of his heart toward God, the relationship the son has with the father. It tells us what he thinks of God, the Father, that he’s the Lord of heaven and earth. It tells us that God is intentional, that God is actually involved in the process of both revealing and concealing.

We’ll talk about that a little bit more in a second. And that it was really well pleasing in the sight of God to reveal to those who are innocent babes, that are eager to learn, that are humble enough to learn, and to conceal from those people who think they’re wise in their own eyes, and don’t think they can learn anything from God or from being around a group of people who believe in God.

And then the really amazing verse, verse 27 is really self revelation of Jesus. Check this out, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the son, and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.” So how many things have been turned over to Jesus by the Father?

All things.

All, I love that three letter word. I want to write a book called All the Alls of the Bible. I think that there’s just so many awesome alls, and here’s one of them. “All things have been handed over to me by the Father.” And lately we’ve been in awe of what we’ve seen taken by the big space

telescope, the new one that they’ve released all these pictures. And so we see some of the things that have been turned over to Jesus by God, the Father. Or if you dive deep into the ocean and you follow some of the website for NOAA, I think it’s called, you see some things, pretty amazing things that are at the bottom of the ocean, and on the way to the bottom of the ocean.

Or if you’re a medical person like Melissa, and so many of the others in our church that are doctors and medical research people and all that sort of thing, and you check out all of that information. All things have been… Gravity has been handed over to Jesus. Everything has been handed over to Jesus. That’s what makes this so remarkable when he says this in verse

28, “Come to me. 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 lowly, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy. My load is light.”

There’s just so much here. I got to jump to the slides, or I’m going to fall into the 26 minute range. And I’m really angling for that.

Matthew 11:16 to 31:

1. The Peril of Human Presumption (v. 16-24) 

We see this in verses 16 to 24. That generation of religious folk were the original cranky curmudgeons, as I said. Their view of life, they thought a life that would honor God would be smug and sanctimonious, and, “I can’t learn anything from…” I mean, that’s their view of what it meant to be a religious person.

And I think there’s people like that in own day and time. Maybe some of you grew up going to church with some of them. I did too. I just don’t want to become one. And that’s why I’m glad this passage is here. I don’t want to be one of those people. I want to remain that child that when Jesus plays the flute, man, I’m like ready to go. Let’s do it, man. And at the same time, the heart can be moved by the pain I see and feel in the lives of others. In other words, I want my heart to be like the heart of Jesus. I want to see what He sees. I want to weep over what He weeps over. And I want to rejoice over what He rejoices over.

Did your heart stop moving sometime ago? Are you so jaded or maybe you’re so angry, or maybe you’re so fearful that your heart is frozen up and you’re stealing yourself all the time. Because of you’re afraid that you’re going to be vulnerable before the Lord, or before some circumstance or before some people. But there is a peril, I think, to human presumption that is, in this case, the presumption of, “I don’t need to dance to your flute. I don’t need to mourn over what you mourn over. And as a matter of fact, you did your miracles in my city, I don’t need to get all excited about that either. I’m just glad so and so can walk, that’s enough for me. I don’t need to look beyond that.”

And that’s where Jesus was, around a group of people who are just marked by indifference, spiritually non-responsive, unsatisfiable, unappeasable, petulant, obstinate, and willful in their unbelief. And that’s why this is such a good contrast to the passage from last week. Pastor Matt led us through that passage, talking about John the Baptist, this one that Jesus said was “one of the greatest born of a woman in all of history.” And yet there He was with His doubts asking these questions.

And so we move from sort of the honest doubters to here. Now we’re talking about the willful unbelievers, and Jesus is really exposing where their hearts are at. They will not be moved. Their only response to the gospel is to castigate both those who enjoy the freedom of food and drink, and those who don’t enjoy that freedom. In other words, they’re scolding everybody with their religious curmudgeonliness.

What do you think breeds this kind of indifference? What turns our hearts to stone and keeps us from being moved? Is it the weight of a broken world? Like what’s going on over in Ukraine. Or maybe it’s the acrimony of a broken culture, like what’s going on here in the United States. Perhaps it’s our idol worship of things like politics. So many of us just earnestly believe the answers will be found in that category of things. Which, man, I just don’t see that in Jesus at all.

Some have an indifference that’s born out of hubris, some demure out of fear, because they don’t believe God would ever love them or could ever love them. And I don’t know where you’re at. I don’t know what motivates you. I don’t know what has caused your heart to freeze up, if it has frozen up. And I don’t know what has made you weary if you’re weary today, if you’re heavy-laden or burdened today. But I’m pretty sure that there are some people in the room that are weary and heavy-laden.

And I think that those folks that continue to say ‘no’ to God, no matter what God’s overtures are of love toward them. I’m pretty sure they’re constantly, chronically dissatisfied and weary. Why? Because everything else that they might be depending on can never satisfy them. There’s not enough of anything in the entire universe to satisfy you fully, apart from God.

He has actually created you with eternity in your hearts. So nothing finite will ever satisfy you. And so He points out these different kinds of folks. And I want to invite you to consider that you may have adopted the wrong view of God, and that maybe that’s why it’s so important for us to study through books of the Bible here.

God revealing himself here. Jesus specifically revealing himself. And this is one of the most bold, most clear statements of Jesus, when He says, “My heart is gentle and lowly.” If you ever ask the question, what was Jesus really like? Here’s what He wants you to know. His is a gentle and lowly heart. His is a humble disposition. His is not a wagging finger, but open arms. Open to the point of a cross, so that you might, and I might be able to find our rest in Christ. He is gentle and lowly, and He is for you.

Os Guinness is really great when he sort of analyzes culture. And I love this statement on hubris,

“It’s not simply arrogance, but presumption born of the illusion of in vulnerability. It’s why nations at the height of their power and prosperity are especially deaf to warnings.”
Os Guinness, A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future

And I’d say the same thing is true for individuals. Man, if you’re harrumphing at God, if you’re in a position where you’re like, “I don’t care if He plays a flute or a dirge. I don’t care if there’s dance music or whatever, I’m not interested,” if you’ve got that kind of stone heart, man, He’s invited you to receive from Him a new heart. To find rest in Him and to have a heart of flesh, again.

This is the peril of human presumption that Jesus speaks, to the peril of hubris. When, like the children in verse 16 to 17, we shut ourselves off from the good news or from the wise warnings of scripture. And then we set ourselves up as if we have the final word on all things. We are childish, foolish, and we are willfully unrepentant. And that’s why He goes on to describe those cities as unrepentant. And He cast his woe upon those cities.

“We’ve rejected the position of dependence which our creativeness inevitably involves, we’ve made a bid for independence. Worse still, we’ve dared to proclaim our self-dependence, our autonomy, which is to claim the position occupied by God alone.”
John Stott, The Cross of Christ

The Cross of Christ, probably one of my favorite all time books by John Scott, or by anybody, since the scripture’s closed. By any theologian that I’ve ever read from anyway, I love The Cross of Christ. It’s a great book. And this particular quote, I want to embroider it on my t-shirt or something. I mean, it’s just so brilliant.

Because autonomy is the altar at which we are worshiping in our day and age, right now. You can have the last word. You’re the one that should determine right from wrong. You’re the one that should be able to define who you are. You’re the one you belong to. And the Bible says, “No, none of that is true. Let me set you free. You belong to God. You are created by God for His good pleasure.” Lean into that and you’ll find the rest that Jesus is offering here to all. It’s on offer to all. Verse 15 says, “He has ears to hear, let him hear.” Again, I have to ask, are we listening?

2. The Prerogative of Divine Sovereignty (vs. 25-27) 

The second thing I want to point out is the prerogative of divine sovereignty. So we got the peril of human presumption, and we have the prerogative of divine sovereignty here. This is God’s will to choose, to reveal to some and to conceal revelation from others. Now I know some of you’re out there going, “Ah, I don’t like that. I think everybody should be able to make their own choice. I think God created free will, and we’re all supposed to be able to be the ones to determine.” But I want to invite you to at least carry that out a little bit and consider how, at some point, you become God, you become the one with the last word. At the same time, it’s up to you to hear correctly and discover God. And I would suggest to you, that’s not what the Bible teaches.

The Christian faith is not about human discovery. It’s about divine revelation. God is always the initiator. We are always the responders. That’s really important, I think. And it’s his prerogative to do that. Who does He choose to reveal himself to? And who does He conceal himself from? And, again, I recognize some of you who may struggle and wrestle with this. And I can’t say that I’ve answered every question I have in this category either. What I can say from this passage, which isn’t really just teaching about the process, the way God makes His choices and

decisions, it’s not really talking about that. It does infer or imply, though, that He seems to be revealing Himself to those with the childlike heart, not the childish heart, but the childlike heart.

And it seems to me that here, the ones who are wise in their own eyes, who have come to the place of indifference, that God is simply giving them what they want, life without God, because that’s what they want. It appears to me that’s what’s going on. I think in real life, as we look across the pages of scripture, we have at least three methods or means, if you will, of God revealing himself to us.

Through the Bible, we learn of these three categories:

1. The General Revelation of God apparent throughout all creation.

2. The Written Revelation of God available to us through scripture.

3. The Living Revelation of God offered through the life and teachings of the historical person Jesus of Nazareth.

General revelation of God, which is apparent throughout creation. I mean, some of us look up in the heavens and we see the glory of God, the beauty of his constellations, and see those pictures that come from that new telescope. And we just are so excited by all that, and it just it’s speaks to… Other people look at the same exact thing and all they see would be rocks and gas and impersonal motion of a mechanistic universe that’s only driver is the random chance, colocation of atoms and chemicals. And that’s what causes things to move. No explanation for how that process began, of course.

But nonetheless, two people looking at the same evidence come away with separate conclusions. Why? Because of the openness of heart and mind or not. And I’m encouraged by the general revelation of God. I get blown away. I have that, I’ve talked about this, some of you guys have that app too, the one that identifies the stars, and you hold it up there, and click on it, and, “Hey, it’s Vega. What’s up Vega.” You’re kind of waving up the thing, and you get the names down on the different stars up in the night sky.

The written revelation of God available through scripture, that’s why we study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. I really want to see how Hosea intersects with Matthew. I want to see how Matthew quotes the Old Testament 99 times, close to a 100 times. I want to see how that all ties together. What’s a meta narrative that runs throughout the whole thing?

I love that kind of stuff. I love the Book of Revelation, because it reminds us that all of the machinations on our earth, all the difficulties, all the joys, everything, all of that is going to come together someday, led and guided by God’s sovereign hand. And He’s got an amazing plan for reality. And I want to be able to join in with God and what He wants to do with his reality, and help. I want to see his glory and all of it. Scriptures so important.

And then the living revelation of God offered through the life and teachings of Jesus. These are the means and methods of revelation, but what’s the purpose of revelation of God to humanity? Why should this be important to us?

“The revelation of which we speak in the Christian tradition is more than the communication of information; it’s the giving of an invitation. It’s more than an unfolding of the purpose, which was otherwise hidden in the mind of God, but is now made known to us through God’s revealing acts; it is also a summons, a call, a call that is an invitation.”
Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence

And it’s extraordinary, isn’t it? And it’s extraordinary because of who is extending the invitation. And it’s also extraordinary because of whom that invitation goes out to. Jesus, the one who all things have been turned over to, He’s the one inviting. You and I, we are the ones that are being invited. How will you respond? Great question.

Jesus says,

“Come to me all who labor or are weary and heavy-laden or burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me. I’m gentle and lowly or humble of heart. You will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy. My burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30

Come, don’t be afraid. Turn to Jesus. Come, stop running away. Stop, turn around. You can trust Him. Come to Jesus, not to mere religion, not to some ambiguous, spiritual concept or experience, not to another failed attempt at self-discovery, not just to The Village Chapel. Come to Jesus, all who labor and are burdened or heavy-laden. If you’ve been spinning your wheels long enough, you will wear out.

I love to watch the Tour de France. Tomorrow, they take a rest day. I get on my exercise bike in my living room and I watch how they pedal, the speed at which they pedal, and I try to keep up with them. Now realize they’re on a mountain going up this steep, I’m in an air-conditioned living room. I’ve got a beverage over here, a couple books over here, and sometimes I can keep my pedal stroke as fast as theirs. But, man, I get tired really fast. And maybe you’re tired, maybe you’re soul is tired from so many things in this world. And if that’s the case, hear the invitation of Jesus.

He will give you what you can’t achieve. He give you what you can’t acquire. He will give you what you can’t seem to find. He will give you what you can’t earn. He will give you the rest of soul that you’ve been looking for. “Take my yoke,” what’s that mean? Most of us don’t have two oxen that wear a wooden yoke, and so we don’t really know what that’s about.

A couple of things, I mean, I had to study up, because I’m not a farmer or a guy that owns cattle like that. But I think He’s saying, “Turn yourself over to me. Walk in sync with me. Be marked by ownership to me. It’s my yolk that you’re going to take. And you’re going to be…” Usually, a yoke

has two cattle, they’re walking side by side. So we’re going to be walking with Him. Go where Jesus goes, at that pace Jesus goes, turning where Jesus turns. In other words, our heart and our eyes become like His. We see what He sees. We want what He wants. We desire what He desires. And that means at some point we’re going to learn from Him. And the beautiful thing is that He is gentle and lowly. And He’s the one that calls you.

Augustine,

“You’ve made us for yourself. Oh Lord, our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.”
St. Augustine (354-430), Confessions

Every time I get restless, I remember this quote.

And I ask myself, “What is it I’m trying to rest in that can’t give me rest?” Because Jesus promises me rest.

“What then are we afraid of? Can we have too much of God? Is it a misfortune to be freed from the heavy yoke of the world and to bear the light burden of Jesus? Do we fear to be too happy, too much delivered from ourselves, delivered from the caprices of our pride, delivered from the violence of our passions, and the tyranny of this deceitful world?”
Francois Fénelon

Man, that is worth marinating on that right there. Francois Fénelon, from the 17th and 18th century.

“God is God. Because He is God, he’s worthy of my trust and obedience. I’ll find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my notions of what He is up to.”
Elisabeth Elliot

That’s so beautiful. She just has a way of saying it all.

And because I am now at 24 minutes, probably not, I’m probably beyond, but I will close with this Dane Ortlund quote. His book, Gentle and Lowly, focuses completely on this passage.

“Listen folks, whatever is crumbling all around you in your life, wherever you feel stuck, this remains un-deflectable: His heart for you, the real you, is gentle and lowly. So go to Him. That place in your life where you feel most defeated, He is there; He lives there, right there, and His heart for you, not on the other side of it but in that darkness, is gentle and lowly. Your anguish is His home. Go to Him.”
Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly

And then he quotes from Thomas Goodwin, the Puritan,

“If you knew His heart, you would.”

Let’s pray: Lord, thanks. We want to know Your heart more. We want to see You, Jesus. Spirit, we want You to move on us and expose those parts of our hearts that have become indifferent. Those parts of our heart that will neither rejoice in you nor grieve over what you grieve over, including our own sin. We just resist. Lord, break through that exterior in our hearts, give us hearts of flesh. Transform us. Even as we study Your word here, I pray the Holy Spirit would move in this room and among us. And that some hearts would be softened and tendered toward You, right now, because of the restlessness in their own lives, in their own world. Lord, we need You. Pray that we would turn to You. In Jesus’, amen, and amen.

(Edited for Reading)