62 How Jesus Brings Rest to the Weary (Matthew 11:25-30)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the 62nd talk in our series on the Gospel of Matthew, and we will be studying Matthew chapter 11, verses 25 through 30. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast, or you can find them by going to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 62. Thanks for listening today. Well, we are finishing Matthew chapter 11 today. This chapter is largely about the relationship between God and the Jewish people. Just to review, we begin the chapter by looking at the confusion of John the Baptist. John was in prison. He's looking at what Jesus is doing, and he becomes confused because Jesus doesn't fit his expectations of what the Messiah would do. Jesus straightens out John's thinking and then turns to address the largely Jewish crowd. And as we talked about, John was facing the same confusion that any Jew of his day might face. In some ways, Jesus is not at all what they expected. He's not acting like they expect the Messiah to act, but on the other hand, they have lots of evidence that he is indeed the Messiah. That means his Jewish audience, just like John, had to be willing to learn and change their expectations. And Jesus pointed out to them on the one hand, they should listen to John the Baptist, they should heed his call and repent. He is the last great prophet. He is right to tell them the Messiah is come and they should pay attention. They don't want to dismiss John the Baptist because he has a very important message to deliver. On the other hand, Jesus is somewhat unexpected. Personally, each person has to come to terms with his message. Each person must wrestle with the big questions like why is life so hard? Why do the bad guys seem to be winning? Why isn't the Messiah coming in judgment right now and putting all things right? And so forth. And each person has to wrestle with those questions and say, I will trust Jesus, I believe he's the Messiah, even if I don't understand what he's doing right now. Then Jesus addresses the reaction of the Pharisees and the Jewish cities of Galilee. John the Baptist was the messenger sent by God to announce the Messiah. Jesus was the Messiah, yet most religious leaders of the day rejected both of them, because neither fit their model of what a religious person ought to be. Then Jesus goes on to explore the negative reaction of the Jewish people, and he says, Woe to you, Jewish city, for if the notoriously sinful pagans had seen my miracles, they would have repented. It will be worse for you on judgment day than it will be for those sinful pagans. He focuses on the cities in Galilee in which most of his miracles were performed. The Messiah lived right there in their towns. They had more opportunity to see his miracles and to hear him teach than anyone else, and still they rejected him. In spite of all that they had seen, they still failed to repent. Well now Jesus closes this section by talking about those who do repent and do receive him. Let me read Matthew chapter eleven, verses twenty five through thirty. At that time Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. This passage is made up of three small pieces, and we're going to look at each one of them separately, and then I'll try to put it all together. The first section is this little prayer in verses twenty five and twenty-six. At that time Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. Let me start with a little bit of housekeeping. Luke records this same prayer in a different context in his chapter ten. So the question is what's going on here? I don't think it's necessary that Matthew is claiming that the prayer in 1125 happened immediately after the comments in 1124. Luke puts his material together chronologically whenever he can, but Matthew, as we have seen, tends to organize his material by theme, regardless of the chronology. Instead, I think Matthew is saying around this time or in this general time period, Jesus prayed this prayer and it serves as a fitting counterpoint to what we've just been looking at. In the previous section, Jesus highlighted the unbelieving and unrepentant response of the Jews in Galilee. They saw more of the work and teaching of Jesus than anyone else, and still they rejected him. And we find this hostile response primarily among the religious elite of the day, the scribes and the Pharisees. Well, that fits very well with this prayer. Jesus thanks the Father for hiding these truths from the so-called wise and understanding and revealing them to children. And I think Jesus has the scribes and Pharisees in mind, in contrast to, say, the tax gatherers and the sinners. The scribes and the Pharisees were teachers of the law and they explained the scriptures to everyone else. In that sense, they should be wise and clever, but they don't get it. These two words for wise and clever are often paired in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. Usually when we see these two words together, it's a good thing to be. Clever means intelligent, discerning, and understanding, and the wise and the clever are the ones who usually get it. But there are a couple of key passages where this phrase the wise and the clever is turned upside down and has the same sort of negative connotation we find in Matthew. Perhaps the most significant one is Isaiah twenty nine, thirteen through fourteen. And the Lord said, Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder, and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden. Isaiah is rebuking the people in the land who claim to be godly. They honor God with lip service, but their hearts are far from him. They would think of themselves as being wise and discerning. They consider themselves the people of God, but when God brings judgment, everything they thought to be wisdom and cleverness will be shown to be empty and useless. And those two words in that passage, wise and discerning, when this gets translated into Greek, are the same two words we're looking at in Matthew. Paul quotes this Isaiah passage in First Corinthians chapter one, and that's another key text where we find these two words paired in a negative context. Let me read you first Corinthians one eighteen through twenty-one. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. Okay, how does God destroy the wisdom of the wise? Well, Paul makes it pretty clear in this passage. The world considers some people in this age to be wise and clever, but in the end their wisdom is going to be shown to be foolish. It amounts to nothing because their wisdom did not lead them to know God. How can someone be called wise and discerning if they have missed the author and creator of the universe? Their wisdom amounts to nothing because it didn't get them anywhere important. In fact, they missed the boat on the most important question in the universe. These so-called wise people look at the gospel and say, ooh, my wisdom tells me the gospel is foolish. And God replies, That doesn't bother me at all. I am well pleased to save people with a gospel that you so-called wise consider foolish because your so-called wisdom is flawed. You may understand a lot of things, but you misunderstand the most important things in the universe, the gospel of Jesus Christ. This idea is rooted in one of the central themes of the Bible, and that is that what we know and what we believe is tied to our will. All of us believe what we want to believe. We have a worldview, a picture of reality that we use to decide what is true and false or what is good and bad. The biblical claim is that as sinners, we have built the wrong picture. We all start with the wrong worldview. We ignore evidence that doesn't fit our picture because we don't want it to be true. We don't want to admit that God has a claim on our lives, and we don't want to admit that we are evil and in need of mercy and salvation. Brilliant, intelligent people often use a flawed picture of reality when they navigate the world. And in many ways, brilliant people can be quite successful. They can write books, they can win political campaigns, they can teach classes, and they can even be very religious in their own way. But when faced with the most important questions like who is God and what does he want from me, they become silly and foolish. In 1 Corinthians, Paul is writing to Greek Gentiles. Many of them have rejected Paul. They think he's foolish, they define wisdom in terms of how many important people believe it, and they are deeply unimpressed by Paul because Paul wasn't convincing many of the wealthy elite to become believers. In their worldview, wisdom vindicates itself by how many arguments it wins. Since Paul wasn't convincing many of the sophisticated elite to become believers, they concluded he didn't speak wisdom. But notice their definition of wisdom was rooted in a worldly desire for prestige. They want to be part of the elite. They want to be cool and hip and have people say, Oh yeah, you Christians, you're cool and hip too. Paul tells them God is quite aware that the so-called important people are not impressed by Paul and his gospel. God knows that the nobility think Paul is a fool, and what does God care about that? That so-called wisdom has led them so far astray that they don't recognize or know God. And Paul says God is well pleased to save people with a message that the cool, sophisticated people think is foolish. Paul quotes from Isaiah, in Isaiah, the particular issue was different. Isaiah is writing to Jews who were giving lip service to God while they didn't really care about him. God is going to take away what they think is wise and clever and show it to be foolish. They had a different kind of religious worldliness than the Corinthian Greeks, but both had a wisdom that was rooted in an essentially worldly perspective that was hostile to God. Both of them thought they were wise, but in both cases they have a fundamental flaw in their wisdom in that they love the world and reject God. Well, that same kind of thing is happening in our Matthew passage. Jesus is talking to the religious elite of the Jews, the scribes and the Pharisees, and although they are pious students of the law, Jesus has shown that they do not really take God seriously and they love the world more than God. We saw a lot of that in the Sermon on the Mount. They have distorted the law to support their own self-righteousness and worldliness. They think of themselves as wise and understanding. They see themselves as the teachers of Israel, but in fact their wisdom is not really wisdom. Jesus uses language very similar to Isaiah, where their so-called wisdom and the wise will be shown to be foolish, because their so-called wisdom is rooted in self-righteousness and worldliness and a general unwillingness to believe the truth. It's no surprise that they reject Jesus because they have a corrupted view of what's wise. Jesus thanks God for revealing the truth of his message to little children instead of to the so-called wise. Now, why little children? In the Greek translation of the Psalms, this Greek word is used to translate a Hebrew word that means something like the simple or the naive. For example, in Psalm 197, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. And that's the word we're looking at. Then again, this is Psalm 119, verses 129 and 130. Your testimonies are wonderful, therefore my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light, it imparts understanding to the simple. Both of those words simple in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, are the word we're looking at in Matthew. Both these passages talk about God giving understanding to the simple or the naive, not literally infants, but those who are immature, those who know they have a lot to learn, as opposed to those who think they are already wise. I think that's the sense in which Jesus is using this word in Matthew. The wise and the clever are those who believe they have it all figured out and they consider themselves superior to others in their understanding, but their worldview is ultimately rooted in an indifference to God. The simple or the little children are those who know that they need help and know that they have a lot to learn. They consider themselves infants in learning, and their worldview is rooted in seeking God. Jesus is about to make an appeal to those who are weary and burdened, and I think these are the same kind of people. The simple are the ones who know they're weary and burdened, and thus they need help and wisdom. Rather than having a so-called sophisticated wisdom that rules God out of the picture, they have a simple basic understanding that God is there and they need him. I hope it's clear that Jesus is not knocking reason and intelligence. Like all biblical authors, Jesus makes reasoned and intelligent arguments. He criticizes people for having irrational beliefs that make no sense. He criticizes people for interpreting the Bible in ways that are not intelligent or defensible. All biblical authors urge us to pursue wisdom and understanding. So Jesus is not saying that we are to check our minds at the door when we seek to follow Him or seek to follow God. Jesus is not saying that there is something wrong or dangerous about wisdom and intelligence. Rather, he's contrasting a wisdom based on a flawed understanding of reality with true wisdom that is based on an accurate understanding of reality. The problem is not the pursuit of wisdom and understanding. The problem is stubbornly refusing to acknowledge God or anything about him and then building our wisdom on that flawed start. All of this comes back to the idea that we believe what we want to believe. If we reject God, we will refuse to believe the truth. God is well pleased to thwart such so-called wisdom. Instead, those who have a more humble, simple belief in God will find wisdom in the end. Again, in this context, I think he's talking primarily about the scribes and the Pharisees. The religious elite of his day have a very high opinion of their own understanding of Scripture and how everyone else ought to be listening to them, but they are more interested in their own prestige than in seeking God. Jesus has criticized the Pharisees for having a hollow belief built on a worldly and self-righteous foundation. He's contrasting them as the so-called wise with the infants like his disciples, those who have a fundamental sense that they are sinners in need of God's mercy, and they are genuinely seeking God. After the prayer, then Jesus describes his own role in this process of revealing wisdom. It's only one verse, Matthew 11, 27. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. So Jesus has just praised God for hiding his truth from the so-called wise and revealing them to the simple. This is not some process that Jesus is observing from a distance. In his very life and ministry, this dynamic plays itself out. Jesus is describing his own work. Jesus is the one who reveals the truths of God. The scribes and the Pharisees are the wise and the clever from whom the teaching of Jesus is hidden. The disciples of Jesus are the simple or the infants to whom Jesus is revealing the truth. Of course, the implication of what he's saying spreads out across the centuries to us, but it starts here. Jesus is describing what he's actually doing during his earthly ministry. He's just been talking about the unbelief of the Galilean Jews, and Matthew sees what's being said here as appropriately connected. Here we see some of the dynamic of that unbelief. Now Jesus says, all things have been handed over to me by my Father. This verb handed over is used at times to describe a kind of delegation of authority. The word is delivered, and most often you find it in the context of being betrayed or delivered over to the authorities. But sometimes we see this word used in a different sense. For example, during the temptations, back in what was that, Matthew chapter 3 or 4, Satan tells Jesus that the world has been handed over to him and he can give it to whom he wishes. Basically, Satan tells Jesus that God has permitted this time when Satan is in charge and Satan is boasting, I can give it to you if you want. Now we can debate how much of that boast is a delusion of grandeur, but we can see the meaning of the word. In the parable of the talents, which we'll get to in Matthew 25, a master is leaving on a journey and he hands over his possessions to his servants. He entrusts his possessions to them and leaves them to make all the decisions about how best to use them. His possessions are now their responsibility, and it's our same word. So I think we can see that same kind of flavor in this passage. The Father has given Jesus authority and responsibility. This is another way of describing the fact that he is the Messiah. The Messiah is the one to whom God has granted authority and dominion to rule for him and to represent him to all people. Jesus has had all things entrusted to him by God. Jesus alone among mankind understands the purposes and the plans of God. Jesus alone has the authority to forgive sins, to explain the truth, and to decide who enters the kingdom of heaven and whoever. Who doesn't? All of that has been handed over to him by the Father. And this is why Jesus can say no one knows the Son except the Father and vice versa. The Father has given Jesus perfect understanding and perfect authority. If we want to know God, we have to know Jesus. If we want to understand the Father and His purposes, then we have to go to Jesus. Now Jesus refers to God as Father many times in Matthew. We saw it in the Sermon on the Mount. But in most of those places, he refers to God as your Father or our Father, something all the people of God experience. In this prayer, when he starts, thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, all of us could start a prayer that way. But when he says, No one knows the Father except the Son, he is referring to a unique relationship that he has with God that does not extend to regular believers like you and me. This language comes out of the Davidic covenant where God promises that he will enter into a father-son relationship with the Davidic King. Ultimately, Jesus is the preeminent Davidic King and is the Son in a way no other Davidic King is. When Jesus says my father, he is describing a relationship that is quite unique to him. Now what does he mean by anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him? Well, scholars debate how much is being claimed by this verse and whether this is a knockdown argument for predestination. I think the Bible does clearly teach predestination, but I don't think this verse is the strongest argument for it. Because of the context, I'm tempted to take this verse in a more straightforward way. Remember, we're in a section of Matthew's gospel that is focusing on how people, particularly the Jewish people, respond to Jesus. What are people responding to? The teaching of Jesus. How is Jesus revealing the Father in the previous chapters? He's been teaching and he's been healing. He's just been pronouncing woe to the Galilean cities who saw his mighty works and heard his teaching and rejected him. That context suggests to me that the revealing he's talking about in this context is his teaching and his ministry, especially since in the very next verse he invites people to come to him as his disciples. He hides the Father from the so-called wise, and as we're going to see, he reveals the father to the weary and the burdened that take his yoke and learn from him. So the context suggests to me that as a teacher, as one whose job it is to reveal God to others, he has exactly the same attitude that the Father does. It is his good pleasure to reveal God to the weary, the needy, the burdened, and the simple. Part of the reason the Pharisees were always so provoked with Jesus is because he never acknowledged their so-called wisdom. In fact, he often criticized their wisdom. So we get this flow of thought in the context. Jesus praises God for hiding the truth from the so-called wise and understanding, and instead revealing that truth to the simple and the humble. He says God is doing all that through the ministry of Jesus, and Jesus has the same agenda and attitude. He is going to reveal the Father to those who are simple, weary, and burdened. He's not going to try to win over the elite scribes and Pharisees who are wise in their own eyes. Well, that brings us to the third part, and this statement is unique to Matthew. We don't find it in the other gospels. This is 11, 28 through 30. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I think the key phrase here to understanding this little section is take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Jesus is calling people to come to him as disciples, as students. Jesus has just claimed that he alone knows God and can explain God's plans and purposes. He alone knows what it takes to enter the kingdom of heaven, and he alone can explain how to find eternal life. And then he gives this beautiful and comforting invitation to come to him and let him explain what life is all about. A yoke is that wooden collar that gets put around the necks and over the shoulders of animals to hitch them to a plow or to a cart. The animal's master puts the animal in the yoke, and now the animal must do the master's work. A physical yoke restrains the animal, it can no longer wander off in any direction it wants. It's forced to follow the master and to pull the plow or the cart or whatever. Metaphorically, we are yoked when someone else restricts our freedom and imposes his will upon us. Often when we see this metaphor of being yoked, it's in a negative context. It's something we want to get out of. For example, in the Old Testament, we see language about God will break the yoke of your oppressors or God will judge you by putting your enemy's yoke upon you, or slaves or yoke to their masters, that kind of thing. There's situations that you want to get out of. But the Jewish rabbis sometimes use this language in a more positive way. They called people to become voluntarily yoked to the law. And when you're yoked to the law, you agree to let the law impose its will upon you. The law limits your freedoms and it tells you what to do and what not to do, and that's a good thing because the law is good. I think that's similar to the language that Jesus uses here. Jesus urges us to be yoked to his teaching, to let him tell us what is true and what is false, to let him tell us what we ought to do and ought not to do. But as he says, this is not a burden, rather it's going to relieve our burdens. I think that's what makes this metaphor so beautiful and powerful. The teaching of Jesus is a kind of yoke, it's a restriction. It is saying some things are evil and some things are good, some things are right and some are wrong. This is the way to eternal life, and that isn't. In that sense, it puts boundaries on us. But we can trust Jesus as our teacher and our master. His burden is not heavy, it is light, his yoke is easy, and we can submit to him without fear. We can let him call all the shots because he calls the shots well. There's one interesting use of this metaphor outside the New Testament. There's a book in the Apocrypha called The Wisdom of Bin Sira. It was written about a hundred years before the time of Jesus. It is almost certain that the Jews of the time were familiar with it. And in this book the author describes his search for wisdom, which in the end means returning to the Torah and the law of God. And in the final chapter he describes his search for wisdom. Let me read you some of this. This is chapter fifty one. I'll put a link to the text of this book in the lecture notes. For I resolved to live according to wisdom, and I was zealous for the good, and I shall never be put to shame. My soul grappled with wisdom, and in my conduct I was strict. I spread out my hands to the heavens, and lamented my ignorance of her. I directed my soul to her, and through purification I found her. I gained understanding with her from the first, therefore I will not be forsaken. My heart was stirred to seek her, therefore I have gained a good possession. So the author knew he didn't have wisdom, he was seeking after wisdom, and he finally found it. He got wisdom, and he's praising God that he has wisdom and understanding. And then he says, and remember this is bin Sirach speaking, this is not a biblical author, but he says, Draw near to me you who are untaught and lodge in my school. Why do you say you are lacking in these things? And why are your souls very thirsty? I opened my mouth and said, Get these things for yourself without money. Put your neck under the yoke and let your souls receive instruction. It is to be found close by. See with your eyes that I have labored little and found myself much rest. Now there are several interesting parallels between Matthew and this little document. Scholars debate how significant those parallels are, but they are interesting. First, both use the yoke metaphor for receiving instruction. Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Bin Sirah says, put your neck under the yoke and receive instruction. Both start with an invitation to come to the speaker, which is very common in wisdom literature. Jesus says, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden. Sira says, draw near to me you who are untaught. Both speak of receiving rest after a relatively light apprenticeship. Jesus says, you will find rest for your souls because my yoke is easy and my burden light. And Sira says he labored little and found much rest. So are these points of similarity enough to be significant? Well, maybe, maybe not. More importantly, does it change anything in the way we understand Jesus? My good for nothing opinion is that I don't think it changes anything. Jesus might know that some of his audience was familiar with this book and its language, and that some of his audience might recognize it and think that he is using it to make a point. Or he might not. If Jesus is drawing on this language, then it seems to me what is really significant would be the difference between them. Sarah invites the untaught and the uneducated, presumably to make them educated. Jesus invites the weary and the burdened. Sarah suggests we should take on the yoke of wisdom and follow it as he did, but Jesus says we're to take on his yoke because he is the source of the wisdom we need. Sarah is saying I sought wisdom and put myself under its yoke, and you ought to do the same thing, but Jesus is saying it is my yoke that you need to put yourself under. So if Jesus is deliberately echoing this document, and it's not at all clear that he is, then I think that Jesus would mean to highlight the differences. Syra is urging the uneducated and the untaught to follow his example and seek wisdom, but Jesus is calling the weary and the burdened to himself. Now what does he mean by those who are weary and burdened? Some people point to a later passage in Matthew where Jesus accuses the Pharisees of putting a burden on people's backs. This is Matthew 23, 4. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. And also in Acts, Peter argues that Gentile believers should not be forced to follow the law, and there he says in Acts 15 10 Now therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? So from those two verses, some scholars argue that we should understand Jesus to be saying, Come to me all you who are weary and burdened by the law, all of you who are weary and burdened by the Pharisees' view of the law. But I think Jesus means something bigger than just the view of the law. It's certainly true that the Pharisees' view of the law added to the burdens of the people, and their view of the law is quite likely a part of what Jesus is saying. Those who are burdened come to me and I will relieve your burdens in a way that the Pharisees can't and won't. I do think that's part of what he's saying, but I also think he has a bigger picture of what it means to be weary and burdened, and we saw this in the Sermon on the Mount. In general, people are weary and burdened because they are trapped in sin, death, and corruption. We are burdened by the futility of life and the fear of death, and the Pharisees have certainly made those burdens worse, but submitting to the teaching of Jesus will bring true rest from the burden of sin and death and guilt. And what does Jesus mean by rest? Well, again, the Bible certainly speaks of a future rest in the kingdom of God. The only true and complete relief from the burdens of this life will be found in the kingdom of God when the Messiah rescues us from sin, death, and guilt. Becoming a disciple of Jesus is the way to find life in the kingdom, and the kingdom is where ultimate rest is to be found, and Jesus is the one who can bring us into that kingdom. But there's another sense in which that rest begins in this life now, and that rest centers on our hope. Jesus, our teacher, has made our hope clear. He has proclaimed the mercy of God. He brings us the mercy of God through his death on the cross. Imagine someone who's given up the teaching of the Pharisees for the teaching of Jesus. There would be a certain sense of release and relief. Forgiveness is now assured, guilt is removed. The words of Jesus bring hope and comfort now because that burden is no longer a burden. I can honestly confront the sin and darkness in my soul and my many failings before God, and still have hope because of what Jesus has done for me on the cross. And everything he taught about blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, and so forth. That rest begins now with our confidence in the promises of the gospel, but ultimately it's going to find its completion in the kingdom of God. All right, let me try to wrap this up in some way. Jesus starts by acknowledging the wisdom of God. God is pleased to grant that wisdom to those who humbly know their own need as opposed to those who think they have already found wisdom on their own. Those who are wise and self-sufficient in their own eyes reject Jesus, but those who know that they do not have it altogether and that they need God and his mercy, they receive the Messiah. Jesus has been entrusted with all wisdom and authority in his teaching and in his life. Jesus can show us the very plans and purposes of God. He can teach us true wisdom and how to find eternal life. Therefore, Jesus invites all those who know their need to come and be taught by him, and he will give them rest. That rest comes in this life from having hope in the gospel, and it is also an ultimate rest that comes in the kingdom of God when God sends his Messiah to conquer sin and death. So in this passage, Jesus gives us a framework for understanding why so many of the people reject him. We can understand why so many in Galilee rejected him, even though they saw more of his miracles and heard more of his teaching than anyone else. For people who are self-satisfied and indifferent to God, miracles change nothing. They believe they already have wisdom and they think they don't need to listen to Jesus. It is those who are willing to see themselves as needy and weary who will see and understand the miracles and embrace the wisdom of Jesus and therefore find rest. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means but also shows you how to figure it out. All the previous episodes in this series are on my website. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe to it, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can hear his music and find his CDs on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.