The losers who win with the work that is rest for the Master who is slave

'Come to me', Jesus said, 'all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. 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, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.'

First, the losers who win. Jesus is talking to people who are weary and burdened - people who have tried repeatedly and failed.

He is not talking to the successful people who have kept all the commandments and feel very pleased with themselves, but to other ordinary people who were deeply conscious of their failures. They couldn't carry the weight of all those regulations and rules. He is saying to them: 'I know you have failed; I know you feel that burden. Come to me, in me you will find rest'.

The hill and the boulder

There is a Greek legend about a man called Sisyphus. The story goes that the gods and goddesses gave him a particularly cruel punishment in the afterlife. For all eternity he would have to push a boulder up a hill. Each time he got almost to the top of the hill the boulder would slip through his grip and run right back down to the bottom, and he would have to start again. I suppose after a few hundred years of pushing this boulder he would have been weary, weary from trying and never succeeding. What a telling picture of the religious life of so many people in Jesus's day - and our own.

Now if you are very successful in your religion and great at doing all the things that God wants you to do, I am afraid these verses aren't for you. Jesus has some things to say to you, they are not very comfortable things, they are rather challenging and disturbing things. However if you are thinking, 'I can't do what God wants me to do, I keep trying and failing', then Jesus says, 'Come to me and rest'.

Jesus's promise

What does he promise to people who come to him? The work that is rest.
Several times in this chapter we can see that you must repent if you are going to come to Christ (Matthew 11.6,12,20-24). You have to put up a sign that says 'New Management' over your life. It will require effort and Jesus talks about that effort in verse 29 when he says, 'take my yoke upon you'.

What he is saying is, 'Live a life in which you follow me and work for me'. The more you read about that life in the Bible, the more it is clear that it is an extremely challenging life to live. Yet Jesus says in verse 30, 'my yoke is easy and my burden is light'. He promises work and rest in the same breath. It is one of these paradoxes in Jesus's teaching that we struggle to understand sometimes. How can it be such hard work to be a Christian, and yet he promises his yoke is easy and his burden is light?

How can Christians do the most incredibly sacrificial things and yet not find them difficult? Here is an example: 'Brothers we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity, for I testify they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability' (2 Corinthians 8.13).

Paul had visited these churches and said to them, 'Some of your Christian brothers are starving. Can you send some money for them?' Those Macedonian Christians could have said what many of us have said, 'Well, I suppose we should really. Oh, what an effort though, what a sacrifice being a Christian is. I am going to do it but it is really costly.' They didn't do that. Rather, 'they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints' (verses 3-4).

They wanted to do more, because it was a joy to them. They did it for Jesus and with Jesus and in Jesus, and in the grace and love and happiness that he gives.

From the outside

If you look from the outside at the Christian life you would say that is a hard life to live. How many Christians have lived that life and gone far beyond any sacrifice that you or I could contemplate making and they have done it joyfully? Why? Because Jesus's work is rest, his yoke is easy, his burden is light.

You and I have a lot to learn about this. When Jesus Christ says, 'Come to me', he is calling on you and me to walk with him and face these challenges together with him. The order is very important here. He is not saying, 'Give away all your money, and risk persecution and so on, and then you can come to me'. He is saying, 'Come to me now, and then we will deal with these things together'. There is all the difference between effort and struggling and trying to get there and doing it joyfully with the Lord, with him by your side, wearing his yoke, carrying his burden. Is your yoke a hard one, are you thinking inside your heart that following Christ is tough? There is so much work, so much effort. But I wonder, whose yoke are you carrying? Whose burden is on your back if you are finding the Christian life too demanding? Is it really his?

Wrong motivators

There are all kinds of things that can make us want to live as Christians. Are we worried about what other people think? That's a heavy burden to carry. There will be no joy in that. Pride is another yoke that you and I carry sometimes. You don't want to admit defeat. You have seen too many people over the years that have started out as Christians and then packed it in. You say to yourself, 'I am not going to be like them. I am made of sterner stuff.' You give money but it is a point of pride. You pat yourself on the back and say, 'well done me'. But it's a heavy yoke. That kind of Christian life won't make you happy; it is a heavy burden to carry. You and I need to take these things off our backs and get the yoke of Jesus Christ, live for him, live to please him, make his happiness your aim. Say to yourself each day, 'I serve Jesus Christ', because if you live to please him that yoke is easy and that burden is light. This is the work that is rest.

The Master's heart

Why is his yoke easy and his burden light? Well, because he is the Master who is slave. Be clear on this, He is a master. However, he has also got the mentality and the heart of a slave. Look at those words in verse 29, 'Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart'. Those words, 'gentle and humble', are servile words - the ancient Greek writers used them to describe a low despised sort of person. In the Bible, however, Jesus uses them as positive words. Although he is the Master, he has the mindset of one who serves. He showed this at the cross and it is true of all his dealings with us. He leads and teaches and directs your life for your good, unlike so many others who lord it over us for their own benefit. For example - God says in the Bible no sex outside of marriage, a challenging command today. But it is a good one. How many people today, 40 or 50 years old, looking at their families, the relationships they have had, feel that if they could turn the clock back and have their time again they would have lived by this good commandment. You and I can live by it if we come to Christ and take his yoke.

What about the commandment to forgive each other in love? It is a difficult commandment. But when Jesus tells us to do so he is not trying to crush us or to break us. He is trying to help us. What is the alternative to forgiving people? If you hold a grudge, if you try and seek revenge, that is going to ruin your life as well as other people's lives. When he tells us to do things he is speaking to us for our benefit.

Judgement day

Now, not everyone who meets Jesus is going to find him gentle and humble in heart. Indeed, one day he will judge the entire world.

In that day, when the whole human race appears before Jesus Christ, he will no longer be humble. He will be terrifying. But the paradox is that if you spend your life trying to avoid him and escape from him then you will, in the end, face him with all his wrath and terror. If instead you come to him, you will find him gentle and humble in heart. You find safety from the wrath of Jesus Christ not by running from him but by coming to him.

The losers who win, the work that is rest, the Master who is slave. When you come to Jesus Christ you don't have to do anything else first, there are no qualifications needed. Are you willing to take his yoke and learn from him and live with him as your leader? If so you will find the rest that he promises, the ease and peace of carrying his yoke, putting him first in your life. Later, yours will be the eternal peace with God and rest with him in glory.

Tom Forryan was a UCCF travelling secretary and is now minister of Derby Road Baptist Church, Watford.