Learning the Jesus Way of LifeSample

The Heart of Jesus

Pray: Jesus, give me the faith to go where you go, do what you do, trust what you say, and love how you love. Today, I commit to following you. Amen.

The life and message of Jesus is told across four books (the Gospels), 89 chapters, and more than 80,000 words. In all of that, there is only one place where Jesus describes His own heart:

“Come to me, 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.” Matthew 11:28–30 NIV

Within these three verses, Jesus gives an invitation, a promise, an instruction, and a description of His own heart.

First, the invitation: “Come to me …”

This is not a new invitation. It’s the same one Jesus extended to Peter and Andrew, James and John, Matthew, and so many others. Most importantly, it’s an invitation to follow Him. Because all of this is really about Him. He is eternal life. The Jesus way of life is all about Jesus: knowing Jesus, trusting Jesus, following Jesus, and becoming like Jesus.

Next, the promise: “... I will give you rest.”

Pastor Eugene Peterson interprets these words of Jesus this way: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.”

What about you? Have you been beaten down by the burdens of life? Are you so overwhelmed with all the stress and responsibility you’re dealing with that you feel like you’re drowning? Are you sick and tired of wrestling with the shame of not being enough or doing enough to be valued by others?

If you’ve felt any of that, you’re not alone. There is hope. Jesus promises to give you rest, and not the type of rest that only exists in your fantasies and beer commercials. This kind of rest refreshes your soul, brings joy back into your life, and makes your steps lighter and easier than they were before.

That’s the kind of rest Jesus gives when we relax into His love.

But, because of the hustle and bustle of our modern world, learning to slow down enough to still our minds and quiet our souls isn’t as easy as it sounds.

This brings us to His instruction: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me … and you will find rest for your souls.”

Finding rest for our souls comes when we put on Jesus’ yoke and learn from Him. So, we have two important questions: 1. What is Jesus’ yoke? 2. What do we need to learn from Him?

In a literal sense, a yoke is a large piece of wood, laid over the necks of two animals, used to pull a plow or cart. It is an instrument of labor, for doing work—which, in all this talk about finding rest seems a little bit counterintuitive, but that shouldn’t surprise us. The Jesus way of life is an upside-down and countercultural way of living.

In Jesus’ day, a yoke would also refer, in a figurative sense, to the way a Jewish rabbi viewed God and interpreted the Scriptures. When someone became a disciple of a rabbi, they would “put on” their rabbi’s way of seeing God and interpreting their Bible.

Jesus is instructing us to make His yoke our yoke, to make the way He sees God and reads the Bible the way we see God and read the Bible. That’s what we need to learn from Him if we want to enter into His rest.

So, how does Jesus see God? And how does He read the Bible?

If you want to know how Jesus sees God, look at the verses that come right before the passage we’ve been studying:

At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.” Matthew 11:25–26 NIV

When Jesus looks at God, He sees a good and loving Father, and a just and gracious King. He sees a Dad who wants to bless His kids. And a King who wants what’s best for His people.

The yoke of Jesus is defined by a loving relationship, not a lifeless religion.

And how does Jesus read the Bible? The answer to this question is answered most clearly later on in Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus is asked what He believes is the most important command in the Bible (this was a common question people would ask to learn a rabbi’s yoke). Here’s how Jesus answers:

… “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37–40 NIV

According to Jesus, all the instructions in the Law and all the words of the Prophets hang on just two commands: Love God with all that we are, and love others as we love ourselves. All of Scripture—every word, every page, every paragraph—points us to respond to God’s relentless love by devoting our entire lives to Him, and sharing that love with those who have been created in His image.

These lessons unlock a way of life where rest for our souls is possible. A way of life immersed in the heart of Jesus.

A heart Jesus describes this way: “… I am gentle and humble in heart …”

When we think about the heart, we often think of emotions and passions. When Jesus talks about the heart, He’s talking about something deeper and more central than that. Jesus is talking about the core of who we are.

In his book, Gentle and Lowly, author Dane Ortlund says the heart is the “... central animating center of all we do. It is what gets us out of bed in the morning and what we daydream about as we drift off to sleep. It is our motivation headquarters. The heart, in biblical terms, is not part of who we are but the center of who we are.Our heart is what defines and directs us.”

Everything we say and do is defined and directed by our heart.

When we peel back all the layers to get to the very core of who Jesus is and what defines and directs His life, what do we find? One who is gentle and humble.

Everything Jesus does, every word He says, is defined and directed by gentleness and humility. Every act is drenched in loving kindness. He is infinitely interested in you, and He is infinitely approachable. No matter what you’ve done or how much clout you have, Jesus wants you to come to Him and make your home in His love.

Application: In the next chapter, we read a discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees about the Sabbath. Jesus’ approach to Sabbath is born out of His heart and perfectly consistent with His view of God and reading of the Bible. He sees Sabbath as a gift from God for people to find rest from their work and the worries of the world. It is a spiritual practice that trains our bodies to trust what we already believe: in Jesus we can find rest. This week, the next day you have off work and you’re not in school, practice Sabbath. It doesn’t have to be complicated. The goal is to devote one 24-hour period to God by not working and instead spend it enjoying time with people you love and, as often as you remember, bringing your focus back to God.