I’m an Anxious Person — How Do I ‘Rest in Christ’?
00:00:00.000 | No, your podcast feed isn't broken.
00:00:07.080 | We didn't have any new episodes for the past week or so due to an unusually busy start
00:00:11.800 | to 2019 for Pastor John, but we're back in the studio today.
00:00:16.740 | And hopefully we can avoid those gaps in the future with the schedule.
00:00:20.280 | If it does happen again, like last time, I'll let you know in the outros of the episodes
00:00:25.440 | again.
00:00:26.440 | Today's question comes from a podcast listener named Lynette.
00:00:29.960 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:31.240 | Thank you for this podcast.
00:00:32.240 | It has been so helpful over the last couple of years.
00:00:36.660 | Over and over in the Bible, God tells us to rest in Him.
00:00:40.600 | When I'm going through trials of various sorts or even in good times, I don't exactly know
00:00:45.120 | what it means to rest in Jesus.
00:00:48.400 | I'm a naturally anxious person, so I need to learn it."
00:00:51.920 | Pastor John, what would you say to Lynette?
00:00:54.640 | Probably the best thing we can do here is let the precious Word of God speak rest to
00:01:02.920 | Lynette and to all of us, our souls.
00:01:07.080 | So let me just speak the first precious Word that came to my mind when I heard this question,
00:01:13.280 | Matthew 11, 28.
00:01:14.720 | "Come to me," this is Jesus talking, "come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
00:01:20.720 | and I'll give you rest.
00:01:22.760 | Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will
00:01:29.120 | find rest for your souls.
00:01:33.080 | For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
00:01:36.720 | Those are amazing words from the Lord of the universe.
00:01:41.520 | So the first thing we see that's so obvious is He really does want Lynette and you and
00:01:48.520 | me to rest.
00:01:50.000 | He wants us to enjoy rest of soul.
00:01:52.600 | He wouldn't be saying this if it weren't His happy desire for our souls.
00:01:58.040 | He wants His followers to have deep, sweet restfulness of soul, not anxiousness.
00:02:05.280 | And the second thing that's obvious here is that the restfulness is not inactive, but
00:02:13.240 | a way of active living and doing and serving with deep restfulness of soul, and I think
00:02:23.600 | sweet restfulness of body when the day's doing is over.
00:02:28.320 | And the reason I say that is because here's what He says, "Come to me, I will give you
00:02:34.240 | rest.
00:02:36.240 | Take my yoke upon you and learn from me."
00:02:41.600 | So a yoke is an instrument of labor.
00:02:44.600 | When you've got a yoke on, you're plowing or pulling a wagon or something like that.
00:02:50.760 | And He makes clear this yoke is His teaching.
00:02:54.560 | Like the Jews thought of the law as a yoke.
00:02:57.160 | Jesus said, "No, I've got a yoke for you.
00:02:59.760 | It's my teaching.
00:03:00.840 | Take my yoke upon you and learn from me."
00:03:05.240 | Just like Jeremiah 6, 16, "Ask for the ancient paths where the good way is.
00:03:14.160 | Walk in it and find rest for your souls."
00:03:18.320 | So it's rest in a walking, not rest from a walking, but rest in a walking.
00:03:25.040 | But what keeps the yoke, this is what we should ask, I think, is what keeps the yoke, this
00:03:32.040 | restfulness from being heavy and burdensome.
00:03:37.480 | Because He says, "My yoke is easy."
00:03:40.920 | If it's a yoke and it's a burden, those are His words, how can it be easy and how can
00:03:48.920 | it be light?
00:03:50.600 | What's the difference between His burden, His yoke, and the Pharisees who heaped up
00:03:57.320 | legal burdens upon people?
00:04:00.640 | And here's what He said, Matthew 23, 4, "They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay
00:04:09.920 | them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger."
00:04:18.480 | That's Jesus' diagnosis of the difference between His burden and their burden.
00:04:25.300 | They don't lift a finger to lighten the load of the law on the backs of people.
00:04:31.360 | And Jesus not only lifted His finger, He lifted the cross, He lifted His whole life.
00:04:37.900 | The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.
00:04:42.460 | I mean, it's amazing, just stop and think of it.
00:04:45.420 | The Lord of the universe, the Creator of all things, did not come to be served.
00:04:50.340 | How amazing can it be?
00:04:52.380 | But to serve and give His life as a ransom, that's the main way He served, He gave His
00:04:57.580 | life as a ransom.
00:04:59.980 | So when He says in this beautiful passage about rest, "I'm gentle, I'm lowly, and that's
00:05:07.580 | the reason my burden is light and my yoke is easy, because I'm gentle and lowly."
00:05:12.380 | What He meant was, "I'm not a hard slave master.
00:05:15.420 | I don't stand over you with a whip, crack, crack.
00:05:18.100 | Do my word, crack, crack.
00:05:20.740 | I get down low underneath you, and I lift you up."
00:05:25.900 | Philippians 2, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death
00:05:33.540 | on a cross.
00:05:35.720 | So here's my question.
00:05:37.600 | How do we talk about this easy yoke where our souls are restful?
00:05:46.640 | And I think Paul would say, "Talk about it like this," Philippians 2, 12, "Work out your
00:05:51.600 | salvation."
00:05:52.600 | So there's your yoke, right?
00:05:54.480 | Work.
00:05:55.480 | "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
00:05:57.800 | And then here's the opposite of the Pharisees.
00:06:00.440 | "For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
00:06:08.240 | In other words, Jesus has lifted the heaviest load of guilt and sin by dying for us, and
00:06:20.280 | He has also lifted and goes on lifting the daily load of working out our salvation by
00:06:28.160 | being the decisive worker in our lives by the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ within us.
00:06:36.080 | So let me close with just a story that I think captures it.
00:06:40.560 | I might have quoted this before in an episode.
00:06:43.280 | I can't remember.
00:06:44.280 | I just love it so much.
00:06:45.380 | This is John Patton, the missionary to the New Hebrides in the South Pacific in the 19th
00:06:51.760 | century, and it illustrates how the yoke of Jesus, the Word of Jesus, the promise of Jesus,
00:06:58.280 | once you put it on, leads you to do some pretty crazy things like go be a missionary among
00:07:03.040 | cannibals, but in the midst of crisis becomes the sweetest soul-supporting thing imaginable.
00:07:12.280 | So here He is, having served on the Island of Ten.
00:07:17.240 | The natives have been mobilized against Him.
00:07:21.280 | Hundreds of them, even with muskets and with knives, are trying to find Him and kill Him.
00:07:27.000 | He needs to get on a boat and escape quickly, and He has one man that He can barely trust
00:07:32.480 | who says, "Climb up in that tree and stay there while they go underneath, and I will
00:07:36.480 | lead them down this path.
00:07:38.040 | You go on that path when they're gone."
00:07:39.520 | He had no idea whether he could trust this man, so he climbs up in the tree, and years
00:07:43.720 | later here's what he describes.
00:07:45.440 | "The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were yesterday.
00:07:51.840 | I heard the frequent discharging of muskets and the yells of savages, yet I sat there
00:07:57.600 | among the branches as safe in the arms of Jesus.
00:08:02.440 | Never in all my sorrows did my Lord draw nearer to me and speak more soothingly in my soul
00:08:11.960 | than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves and the night air played on
00:08:17.120 | my throbbing brow as I told all my heart to Jesus.
00:08:23.040 | Alone yet not alone, if it be to the glory of God, I will not grudge to spend many nights
00:08:30.520 | alone in such a tree to feel again my Savior's spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling
00:08:38.280 | fellowship."
00:08:39.680 | And then he closes by looking us in the eye and saying, "If thus thrown back upon your
00:08:46.160 | own soul alone, all alone in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death
00:08:52.200 | itself, do you have a friend that will not fail you then?"
00:08:58.360 | I'll tell you, when I first read that, I said, "Oh, Jesus, I want that kind of friendship
00:09:03.480 | like nothing else."
00:09:04.480 | That's our question.
00:09:05.480 | Do we have a friend that will not fail us at every moment when we feel restless and
00:09:11.080 | anxious?
00:09:12.680 | And the answer is, He's right here saying, "Come to me.
00:09:17.400 | I will give you rest."
00:09:18.640 | Amen.
00:09:19.640 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:09:21.440 | Greater love has no one than this, than someone lay down his life for his friends.
00:09:26.960 | Indeed, Christ is our very best friend.
00:09:30.280 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:09:32.200 | Well, as we talk, Pastor John is preparing to embark on an international trip to South
00:09:37.240 | America this month.
00:09:39.000 | I'll ask him about it next time and give you some of the details.
00:09:42.240 | That's on Friday.
00:09:43.240 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.
00:09:44.880 | Amen.
00:09:45.880 | Amen.
00:09:45.880 | Amen.
00:09:50.880 | [BLANK_AUDIO]