The Rest of Our Lives
Text: Matthew 11:28-30
Theme: The Lord is available to everyone who seeks Him.
Life is more like a marathon than a 100-metre dash. Where and how will we find the energy to run this race faithfully and joyfully? Thankfully, our Creator provides for us and leads the way.
Will we trust Him to provide for our families and us? Will we trust Jesus to do His work in us and through us? Will we obey His Word and promptings to do what He wants us to do and say what He wants us to say?
Here’s a thought: Bill Gates claims, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
According to https://www.history.com/news/why-is-a-marathon-26-2-miles:
The marathon may have ancient roots, but the foot race’s official length of 26.2 miles wasn’t established until the 20th century. The first organized marathon was held in Athens at the 1896 Olympics, the start of the Games’ modern era. The ancient games, which took place in Greece from around 776 B.C. to A.D. 393, never included such long-distance races.
The idea for the modern marathon was inspired by the legend of an ancient Greek messenger who raced from the site of Marathon to Athens, a distance of about 40 kilometres, or nearly 25 miles, with the news of an important Greek victory over an invading army of Persians in 490 B.C. After making his announcement, the exhausted messenger collapsed and died. To commemorate his dramatic run, the distance of the 1896 Olympic marathon was set at 40 kilometres.
For the next few Olympics, the length of the marathon remained close to 25 miles, but at the 1908 Games in London the course was extended, allegedly to accommodate the British royal family. As the story goes, Queen Alexandra requested that the race start on the lawn of Windsor Castle (so the littlest royals could watch from the window of their nursery, according to some accounts) and finish in front of the royal box at the Olympic stadium - a distance that happened to be 26.2 miles (26 miles and 385 yards). The random boost in mileage ending up sticking, and in 1921 the length for a marathon was formally standardized at 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometres).
Today, marathon races take place everywhere from the North Pole to the Great Wall of China.
Life is more like a marathon than a 100-metre dash. Where and how will we find the energy to run this race faithfully and joyfully?
Jesus opens His arms to weary people who were carrying burdens in Matthew 11:28-30:
28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. NIV
Jesus invites us to:
Come with Him
You could say that God’s invitation to come to Him is the theme of the Bible. Jesus reassured the disciples of John the Baptist that He was the one to come, the Messiah. Jesus went on to lament how people were resisting God’s invitation through John and now through Himself to go to God. Sadly, their hearts had grown cold and hard. Since the “wise and learned” had rejected these divine initiatives, the Lord would turn to “little children,” people of all ages and nationalities who embraced Him humbly and simply.
Why were the people Jesus was talking to here in Matthew chapter 11 weary and burdened? We find a clue to what causes such weariness as we continue to read in Matthew chapter 12. At that time, Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” Matthew intends to contrast the easy yoke and light burden of Jesus with the onerous sabbath rules of men in chapter 12.
By the way, why was King Arthur’s army too tired to fight? They had too many sleepless knights!
We should note that the law made provision for hungry people by allowing them to eat from a neighbour’s vineyard and field in Deuteronomy 23:24-25:
24 If you enter your neighbour’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. 25 If you enter your neighbour’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing grain. NIV
What started as a commandment to observe the seventh day, the Sabbath, as a day of rest in Exodus 20:8-11 expanded over time to include more rules and traditions. These customs eventually became so oppressive that the religious leaders saw what was a legitimate way to satisfy one’s hunger as a violation of God’s law. Each layer of Sabbath rules and traditions resulted not in rest but weariness. The joy of a relationship with God was shrinking like a tire with a slow leak.
We read of the Lord’s original intentions in Genesis 3:8:
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. NIV
It would appear that the Lord met with Adam and Eve daily for fellowship. He wanted to walk with them and enjoy theircompany. He wanted them to walk with Him and enjoy His company. Kevin Shorter observes (https://prayer-coach.com/2-truths-to-increase-your-love-of-others/?awt_a=35Mc&awt_l=JkCnS&awt_m=mkV1p4G.fZW2.Mc&utm_source=aweber&utm_campaign=welcome45):
In the beginning God created man and gave him a beautiful garden to live in. Man enjoyed face-to-face communion with God Himself in their daily strolls through the garden. Even so, in the midst of this wonderful life, God makes the unusual observation, “it is not good for man to be alone.”
Do any of you find it odd that even with a close relationship with God, God still declares man is alone? And then, do you also find it strange that God’s solution is not more of Himself? God has made us to need other people as well as our need for Him.
We are, first of all, created to be human beings. Being with Jesus brings fulfillment. Being with others can bring fulfillment. God made humans not because He was lonely but out of the overflow of the fellowship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He made us and called us not because He needs to be with us, but because He wants to be with us.
Fellowship or communion provides the starting point for purpose in this life and eternity. He wants us to share this fellowship with Him and our brothers and sisters in Christ. Starting with security in these relationships means we do not have to prove ourselves. We can wear busyness like a badge, telling those around us that we are busy. With this in mind, I try not to tell people how busy I am. Knowing we are already loved and accepted for who we are short-circuits the drive that can lead to exhaustion and burnout. When we know we are loved, we are free to say no and establish healthy boundaries even when people disapprove. We are free to live and work at a manageable and enjoyable pace.
Jesus promises, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, the Lord of rest. Jesus lived knowing that His Father loved Him and was pleased with Him (Matthew 3:17). Resting in this quiet confidence and assurance, He could live without being hurried and love people even when they did not love Him in return. He wants us to embrace and live with divine rest. This posture of rest is transformative and attractive.
Will we trust Jesus for our only hope of salvation? Will we rest in what Jesus has accomplished for us through His life, death and resurrection? What would we look and sound like if we lived and loved from a posture of rest? How would our relationships with people be different if they were the overflow of a deep and daily relationship with God?
Jesus invites us to:
Come with Him
Work with Him
Jesus invites us to take His yoke upon us and learn from Him. There is work to be done, but He will come alongside and work with us.
James M. Freeman and Harold J. Chadwick note in “Manners & Customs of the Bible”:
A yoke was a wooden frame placed on the backs of oxen to make them pull in tandem. The simple yokes consisted of a bar with two loops either of rope or wood that went around the animals’ necks. More elaborate yokes had shafts connected to the middle with which the animals pulled plows or other implements. Often the burden the ox had to bear was so heavy that it would cause them to stumble and fall under it, but Jesus promised that the burden of His followers would never be that heavy.
Happiness tends to come and go with our circumstances and feelings, but the joy of a full life comes from fulfillment and fruitfulness. Although the West Edmonton Mall World Waterpark simulates this, we might think that happiness is found in a life of leisure, sipping a cold drink at the beach in a tropical place. Proving this theory wrong, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world for the eighth consecutive year, according to an annual UN-sponsored report.
God created Adam and Eve to be human beings and “human doings.” God wanted them to come with Him and to work with Him. The Lord had done an incredible job of creating the heavens and the earth, then He planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed (Genesis 2:8). The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15). While our culture would try to tell us otherwise, work is not a curse but a blessing. The man was assigned work before the fall of Adam and Eve. Work became tougher and less fruitful after the fall, but it remains a blessing when viewed from God’s eyes. We might dream of heaven, eternally floating on clouds while we play harps, but the Bible paints a different picture. Rest is not just about doing nothing; it is about being with someone. If we are not at rest with God, we cannot be at genuine rest. Eternal fruitfulness flows out of fellowship with God. Partnership with God yields eternally fruitful work.
The New Testament was originally written in the Greek language. The word koinonia, from which we get the term communion, can, depending on the context, also be translated as fellowship or partnership. We can fellowship with Jesus as we partner with Him, work with Him and learn from Him.
Jesus declares in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” NIV
Someone has observed (from https://www.abbott.com/corpnewsroom/nutrition-health-and-wellness/fully-living.html):
We all know someone living a full life. It’s the person who manages to maintain a busy, yet seemingly balanced existence filled with variety, satisfaction and joy.
It has been a long time since I ran out of gas, but I’ve come close many times. The most stressful time was while driving through the Rogers Pass on my way home to Calgary. I thought I could make it, but as the sun began to set and my fuel gauge dwindled to empty, the doubts and anxiety rose. What would I do with no cell phone coverage in the dark? We can live this way too often, running on fumes with limited reserves. As a result, our quality of relationships and work suffers. Rest is an essential aspect of stewardship. We need to steward our time, energy and money. Thankfully, I made it to Golden, B.C. and breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled up to a gas pump. Hopefully, I learned my lesson not to live with an empty fuel tank. Someone I know would say, “Live like you never need a vacation.”
Rest is about relationships and rhythm. We read in Genesis 2:1-2:
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. NIV
Rest and laziness are not the same. We rest best after we have worked hard. In “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” Max Weber attributes a strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit to the economic prosperity of certain countries. God’s Word commends hard work and warns against slothfulness. He leads people to start businesses and plant churches. We can work with Jesus and rest with Jesus. There are times to go and times to stop. The Gospel writers give us glimpses of this rhythm in the life and work of Jesus, including days full of activity and other times when He rested or slipped away to pray.
Bill Gates claims, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” I would add that most people overestimate what they can do in one day.
God’s people have set aside one day a week for thousands of years to strengthen their relationship with the Lord and one another. We need to establish daily rhythms for rest and work. We need to develop weekly rhythms of worship within our faith community. Such priorities will serve us well for the rest of our lives.
Rest includes trust in God’s provision. Jesus asks in Matthew 6 why we worry when our Heavenly Father looks after the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. He tells us the best remedy for worry is to seek His kingdom first and remember that our Father knows that we need food, clothing and shelter. When we trust Him to look after us, we can live and work from a posture of rest.
In “How to Train for a Marathon,” Yitka Winn offers the four building blocks of marathon training (https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/training-for-your-first-marathon.html):
1. Base mileage. Build your weekly mileage over time, running three to five times per week.
2. The long run. Do a long run every 7–10 days so your body can adjust gradually to long distances.
3. Speed work. Practice intervals and tempo runs to increase your cardio capacity.
4. Rest and recovery. Adequate rest helps prevent injuries and mental burnout.
Life is more like a marathon than a 100-metre dash. Where and how will we find the energy to run this race faithfully and joyfully? Thankfully, our Creator provides for us and leads the way.
Will we trust Him to provide for our families and us? Will we trust Jesus to do His work in us and through us? Will we obey His Word and promptings to do what He wants us to do and say what He wants us to say?
Jesus invites us to:
Come with Him
Work with Him
A full life begins with trusting Jesus.