When Faith Is Hard And The Burden Is Heavy

Just as John and Jesus were opposed, so our message about the Messiah will be met with hostility. We will be criticized in this world, regardless of how we present the truth of the gospel. In verses 16-19 Jesus speaks of how different His ministry was from that of John the Baptist. John barely ate or drank anything, and it was claimed that he was demonic (v. 18); Jesus, on the other hand, ate with sinners and they called Him a "glutton and a drunkard" (v. 19). While John sounded a warning of repentance similar to a funeral dirge, Jesus had sounded a promise of forgiveness similar to a celebration; yet sinful hearts rebelled against both of them. The world will react similarly to you and me when we speak the truth, but wisdom—right living before God—is "vindicated by her deeds" (v. 19).

Even in the middle of difficult situations, unmet expectations, and limited perception, Jesus is worthy of our trust. Telling others about Him won't be easy, but it is a calling worth giving our lives to. We fight doubt in this world and fight fear of this world with faith in the promised Messiah.150

Matthew 11:20-24

After the first portrait of Jesus as the promised Messiah, Matthew shows us next that He is the authoritative Judge. The words, "Woe to you" in verse 21 literally mean, "Warning of doom upon you." Jesus is speaking to these Galilean cities—Chorazin, Bethsaida, and later Capernaum—where He had performed most of His miracles, and the reason for the woe is because they did not repent. The message is clear: Jesus will condemn the unrepentant. People had seen the Messiah and been amazed by Him, and some had even admired Him. However, they did not turn from their sin in response to His summons, "Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near" (Matt 4:17). Tyre and Sidon were Gentile cities on the Mediterranean Sea known for their godless idolatry and immorality, and God had previously destroyed them in Ezekiel 28. Yet in verse 21 Jesus says that if He had done in Tyre and Sidon the miracles that He did in Chorazin and Bethsaida, those wicked cities would have repented in grief and sorrow over their sin, which is what it means to repent in "sackcloth and ashes" (v. 22). This was a stunning indictment, and it continues when Jesus speaks about Capernaum.

Jesus tells self-righteous Capernaum that though they think they will be exalted to heaven, in fact, they will "go down to Hades" (v. 23). Capernaum, then, teaches us a lesson: Jesus will damn the indifferent. The city where Jesus did more miracles than any other place during His earthly ministry, the place where He gave sight to the blind, healed demon-possessed men and paralytics, and even brought the dead to life, did nothing in response to Him. And Jesus says that that is worse than the immorality of Sodom, for the people of Sodom would have turned from their sin and the city would have been spared. We must be warned not to be indifferent to Christ, or we too will be damned forever. Don't close your eyes to Christ, the authoritative Judge.

Matthew 11:25-27

Matthew's third portrait of Jesus is portrayed in a dialogue between the Son and the Father, wherein we get a glimpse into their relationship with one another. Reading these verses, you sense yourself treading on holy ground as you glimpse the inner workings of the Trinity. In the process, we discover several things about these trinitarian relationships.151 First, in verse 27 we learn that Jesus alone knows the Father. When Jesus speaks of "knowing" here, He has in mind more than mere mental recognition, as when we speak of knowing an acquaintance. Jesus knows the Father in a unique and intimate sense, a kind of knowledge that only the divine Son possesses.25

Jesus' exclusive knowledge of the Father is closely connected to another important truth in this passage: Jesus alone reveals the Father. The only people who know the Father are those "to whom the Son desires to reveal Him" (v. 27). Revealing God was part of the purpose of Jesus' coming. He didn't come merely with a word from God; He came as the Word of God made flesh (John 1:14), and as such He was God revealed to man. We know the Father not through worldly wisdom and understanding, but through the revelation of the Son.

The fact that the only way to know the Father is through the Son means that knowing God comes only by divine grace. Verse 25 says that God has "hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to infants." In His mercy, God must reveal Himself to us, which He does through the Son. And as God reveals Himself, we respond, not with unrepentance and indifference, but through human faith. We receive God's truth not with self-righteousness nor with intellectual pride, but with the humble trust of a child, acknowledging our total dependence on the Father. This truth leads to the fourth and final portrait of Jesus in this passage.

Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus is the promised Messiah, the authoritative Judge, the sovereign Son, and the gracious Master. This text is full of wonder: the Son of God, the revelation of the Father, the One who represents the Trinity before man, says, "Come to Me" (v. 28). We have here an explanation of Christianity that is radically different from every other religious system in the history of the world. With such an amazing invitation, we need to understand exactly what it means to come to Jesus.

To begin with, it means we give all we have to Jesus. The imagery in this passage is of a "yoke" (v. 29), a heavy wooden bar that fits over the152 neck of an ox so that it can pull a cart or a plow. The yoke could be put on one animal or it could be shared between two animals. In a shared yoke, one of the oxen would often be much stronger than the other. The stronger ox was more schooled in the commands of the master, and so it would guide the other according to the master's commands. By coming into the yoke with the stronger ox, the weaker ox could learn to obey the master's voice.

In verses 28-30 Jesus was speaking to self-righteous people who were burdened down with laws, rules, regulations, and commandments. Many of these laws had come from God in the Old Testament, while others had been added on by religious teachers of the day. In Matthew 23:4 Jesus says that these religious teachers "tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them." In contrast to these scribes and Pharisees, Jesus called the weary and burdened to come to Him. This is Christianity explained: we give Him the full weight of all our sin. These people were so burdened because they had failed over and over again to keep the law, and as leaders poured on more laws, the people felt more guilty. The weight of their sin became heavier, and they could not stand up under it.

When Jesus calls us to give Him the weight of our sin, we don't merely give Him some of it, but rather all of it. And it's not just the weight of our sin that we give to Jesus; we give Him our complete and utter inability to obey God. To be sure, it's not that the commands of God are bad; they are good (Matt 5:17; Rom 7:12). But the commands cannot be carried out by men in their own strength. We are imperfect, sinful people, and we cannot obey the Master's voice. The call to come to Christ is definitively not a call to try and reform your life and to be a better person—that's not Christianity. That kind of self-righteousness is what Ian Thomas called "the curse of Christendom" (Thomas, The Saving Life of Christ, 104). Thomas talks about the danger of the result of that kind of effort for the life of the church:

Rather than calling us to greater moral effort, Jesus says, "Come to Me" (v. 28). The good news is that when we submit to Him, Jesus gives all He has to us. Remember as you hear Jesus' invitation that He is the stronger One, the One who alone is able to bear the weight of the Father's commands. This is the One who invites us into the yoke with Him. We give Him the full weight of all our sin, and He gives us full pardon for all our sin. We are counted righteous in Christ because He has obeyed the very law we could not obey. Therefore, when we come to Him, we rest with peace before God. Jesus says in verse 29 that we will find rest in Him, or in other words, "relief from bearing the load." Praise God that in Christ we are free from self-effort, self-improvement, and a constant struggle to overcome the guilt and shame of our sin.

Having peace with God and the forgiveness of sins is an unspeakable privilege, but amazingly enough, that's not where Christianity stops. When we come to Jesus He gives us His complete ability to obey God. In exchange for our inability, Jesus says, "Take up My yoke and learn from me" (v. 29). That word "learn" is important—it's similar to the word that is translated "make disciples" in the Great Commission later in Matthew (28:19). Jesus is essentially saying, "Learn what it means to be My disciple, and you will find rest for your soul." And how is it that we find rest for our souls? Because, Jesus says, "My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (11:30).

Jesus alone knows the Father, reveals the Father, and perfectly obeys the Father; therefore when we come into the yoke with Him, He leads us in terms of how to walk with the Father. He enables us to do what we could never do on our own. And when we are in the yoke with Christ, we work in peace with God. In other words, we obey God, not by our own strength, but with the very strength of Christ. In everything we do, it is Christ who is leading us, guiding us, enabling us, teaching us—literally living through us. Speaking of our utter dependency on Christ, Martin Luther said, "Here the bottom falls out of all merit.... Christ must do and must give everything." When Hudson Taylor, the well-known missionary to China, came to this realization in his Christian life, it was said of him,

At the end of the day, the Christian life is not about what you and I can do in and for the kingdom in our own effort; that's a recipe for failure. Following Christ is about Jesus the Christ living in and through and for us on a daily basis. He helps us in our struggles with sin, in our battles with temptation, and in our suffering in trials. Believers are in the yoke with Jesus, and the One who calls us to righteous living is the One who enables us to live a righteous life. The One who beckons you to trust the Father is the One who enables you to trust the Father. And the One who calls us to preach the gospel to the nations is the One who empowers us to preach the gospel to the nations.

We desperately need to hear the invitation of Christ: When faith is hard and the burden is heavy, several responses are appropriate. First and foremost, repent of sin. Don't be indifferent or unrepentant when you become aware of your disobedience, but instead confess it and run from it. You do not need to bear its burden any longer. Second, renounce yourself. Like a child, come to the Father and throw aside your pride. Third, rest in Christ. Come to the One who is gentle and lowly in heart, and find rest for your soul. And when you do come to Christ, rejoice forever in Him. The rest that He offers is eternal.