Galatians 3:19-29

Order of Service

• Hymn — Come, Ye Thankful People, Come
• Call to Worship — Psalm 148
• Hymn — Come, Ye Thankful People, Come (continued)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Scripture Reading — Psalm 145
• Hymn — We Gather Together
• Scripture Reading — Romans 8:31-39
• Prayer of Thanksgiving
• Hymn — Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
• Sermon
• Hymn — All Creatures of Our God and King
• Benediction — Colossians 3:15-17

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Sermon Title: The Thanksgiving of Christ and His Restful Calling

Scripture: Matthew 11:25-30

I. Jesus Gives Thanks for the Revelation of the Father's Gracious Will

A. The Father has revealed salvation to little children, not the wise and powerful (Matthew 11:25-26)

1. God did not make the wise worse — rather, as with Pharaoh in Exodus, he allowed them to pursue the desires of their own hearts in rejecting Christ
2. The religious leaders with their learning and reputation could not receive Christ; the weak and vulnerable could
3. Jesus gives thanks that the knowledge of salvation is accessible not by human achievement, intellect, or social standing, but to the weakest and neediest
4. Matthew Henry: the greatest scholars and statesmen have often been the greatest strangers to gospel mysteries
5. Herman Bavinck: God reveals salvation to little children by removing hindrances to faith and granting true understanding of the Gospel promises — faith itself is a gift of God

B. Saving revelation comes through the Son (Matthew 11:27)

1. All things have been handed to Jesus by the Father; the Father and Son share an exclusive, infinite knowledge of one another
2. Jesus can reveal the Father to whomever he chooses — echoing Hebrews 1:1-2: God has spoken most fully and finally in his Son
3. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life; to see him is to see the Father (John 14:6-9)
4. The greatest revelation in history is made available to the weak and vulnerable — the only barrier is pride

II. Jesus Teaches Us to Give Thanks for His Restful Calling

A. Jesus issues a two-fold invitation to the troubled (Matthew 11:28-30)

1. Come to me — turning the eyes of faith to Christ; a call to repentance and faith, excluding all other suitors and idols
2. Take my yoke upon you — a commitment to follow, serve, and learn from Jesus; an invitation to discipleship
3. In Jewish culture, taking a yoke was a metaphor for commitment and obedience, especially to the law; the Yoke of Christ is a commitment to him as Lord

B. Jesus invites specifically the weary and heavy laden

1. The qualification for discipleship is weariness and exhaustion without relief — those crushed under sin, suffering, and sorrow
2. Not the best and brightest, but little children: weak and weary sinners who can find no rest in the world

C. Jesus promises rest for the soul

1. Unlike doctors, therapists, or any human helper, Jesus promises rest with certainty — only the divine Son can make this promise
2. We fail to receive this rest because we seek it everywhere else: self-righteous works, relationships, money, reputation, possessions
3. Many Christians drift after conversion, silently assuming they have exhausted their allotment of rest; Christ always has rest to give
4. Suffering does not diminish with time but shifts — our hope is not that life gets easier but that Christ is faithful through all of it (1 Peter)

D. Jesus's invitation rests on who he is in his heart — gentle and lowly

1. Worldly experience teaches us that the powerful despise the weak, the beautiful despise the ugly, the wealthy despise the poor — we wrongly project this onto Christ
2. The only place in Scripture where Jesus directly describes his own inner character: I am gentle and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29)
3. Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly (drawing on Puritan Thomas Goodwin): we are prone to distort our view of Christ based on worldly expectations
4. When we finally come to Christ — even after wandering — we will find him as gentle and lowly as the day we first came
5. The story of Naaman (2 Kings 5): if Christ had demanded a great sacrifice for rest, would we not do it? How much more should we respond to his simple call — come to me
6. Matthew Henry: songs of thanksgiving are sovereign cordials for drooping souls, the proper answer to dark and disquieting thoughts