April 26, 2026

“Rest for the Weary”

Message by Rev. Alan Perkins

Good morning! We continue today our celebration of Easter. As I mentioned previously, the Christian church over the centuries has traditionally observed the seven weeks between Resurrection Sunday and Pentecost Sunday as the Easter season, or what some call Eastertide. During this time, we focus on our risen Savior, Jesus Christ, and we reflect on what his victory over death means to us. This morning, we’re going to do that by looking at one of Jesus’ promises to his followers. Since today is the fourth Sunday of the Easter season, which is known as “Good Shepherd” Sunday, the promise I’ve chosen to highlight echoes the opening verses of Psalm 23. I’ll read them to you:

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he refreshes my soul.

And so the promise we’re going to look at is found in gospel of Matthew, chapter 11, verses 28-30, where Jesus says this:

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

That’s one of the things a good shepherd does, is give rest to his sheep. But to many who heard Jesus’ words that day, or who heard about them from those who were present, they must have seemed like the delusional rantings of a madman, or at best some kind of cruel joke, rather than a shepherd’s promise. Because Jesus is making an outlandish and unusual claim. He is not merely claiming to have knowledge, or information, or some kind of revelation that will help them to find peace of mind. He is not saying to them: “if you will change the way you are thinking; if you will grasp this piece of essential insight, then your mind will be at rest”. That kind of offer the people would have understood. Because there were many who made those kinds of claims in Jesus’ day. 

• The Gnostics, for example, who were named after the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis. They claimed that the path to salvation, as they defined it, was through discovering hidden knowledge, or mystical wisdom, about the cosmos. 

• There was also a movement within Judaism at the time called Kabbalah, that claimed to uncover hidden symbolic meanings in the text of the Old Testament. 

Both of those continue to exist today in some form, by the way. Kabbalah was trendy in the early 2000’s, and it was endorsed by Madonna and other celebrities. And Kabbalah, and Gnosticism, and all the similar religious and philosophical movements throughout history, share a common thread, which is that only those who have received some kind of secret knowledge can attain to spiritual enlightenment. 

But this isn’t limited to ancient times, or to movements which are explicitly religious in nature. Walk into any Barnes & Noble, or log on to Amazon, and you can find dozens of books in the self-help section which claim to have that one key insight that will revolutionize your life. Here’s one: “The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About”. It is, quote, “A transformative self-help guide teaching how to reclaim personal power by letting go of controlling others, focusing instead on eight key life areas for happiness and success.” So this idea, that you can somehow transform your life by changing the way you think, or by taking hold of some hidden knowledge, is nothing new. It is perennial; it is present in every era. But that is not what Jesus was claiming. 

Nor is Jesus offering to give his hearers a set of religious practices, or a way of organizing their daily lives, that will enable them to quiet the turmoil in their minds and hearts. Because in fact, they already had that, and it wasn’t working. It was called the Mosaic Law. A Jewish scholar in the twelfth century estimated that there are 613 commands in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament; 248 positive commands and 365 negative commands. And the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the scribes and Pharisees, had added onto that, by developing a myriad of regulations, specifying how each one of those 613 commands was to be carried out in different situations. And so, for the first-century Jews whom Jesus was speaking to, the law was not a source of peace in their souls; just the opposite. It was a set of crushing obligations that they could never fully comply with. Here is what Jesus said about the Pharisees, referring to all of these traditions and regulations:

“4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matthew 23:4)

The apostle Paul, referring to later attempts by the Pharisees to require Gentile Christians to follow the Jewish law, said this at the Jerusalem Council:

“Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? (Acts 15:10)

And again in Galatians 5:1, Paul writes of the Old Testament law as a burdensome “yoke”:

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1)

The Old Testament Law was a heavy, cumbersome load; it was an unbearable yoke; it was a yoke of slavery. And for the last two thousand years, everyone who has tried to find peace with God by following the Old Testament Law has found that it does not bring peace, but only bondage and failure. For example, when Martin Luther became a monk, he struggled intensely to keep God’s law in order to attain righteousness, and he also labored to obey all the strict rules of his monastery, and even go beyond them. He fasted for long periods, sometimes nearly starving himself. He prayed constantly, and kept up a regime of daily devotional practices. He went to confession obsessively, sometimes for hours, trying to recall every possible sin he might have committed. He practiced self-denial and physical hardship to discipline his body. But despite doing all of this, he felt no peace. Instead, the more he tried to keep the law, the more he became aware of his inability to do so perfectly. He wrote, “Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience.” It was only when he came to grasp the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and not by works, that Luther finally felt peace. 

And so Jesus was not offering a new way of thinking, or some secret knowledge, as way of finding peace; nor was he putting forward a set of religious practices that they could follow in order to quiet their hearts: as I said, they already had that, and it wasn’t working. What was he offering, then, as a means of finding rest for their souls? Something completely unexpected. Himself. Jesus was offering himself. Let’s look at the passage in Matthew again:

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

This statement was what made Jesus sound like either a madman or a con man. Because how could one person possibly give rest to all who are weary and burdened? How could he promise to give relief to everyone who would come to him in faith? Who did he think he was? And the answer to that question came later, when Jesus rose from the dead. Because the resurrection demonstrated that Jesus was no ordinary man, but that he was the Son of God. As Paul writes in his letter to the church at Rome:

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 1:1-4)

The resurrection revealed that Jesus was the Son of God, and that he was himself God, the second member of the Trinity. And that is how he can promise peace and rest to all who will come to him in faith. Because he is not only a man, he is both man and God. And therefore, he has the power to make good on all of his promises; he has the power to fulfill all of God’s promises to us, every single one. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:20:

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. 

And so what I’d like to do with the rest of our time is to examine this one promise; to understand what Jesus is offering us, and why we need it, and to grasp how we can take hold of what he is offering to us. Because the resurrection proves that what he promised is something that he can actually give us. 

All right. What is Jesus holding out to us here? Rest. Rest for our souls. Do we need that? I think we do. I think we all do. Because the world we live in has innumerable ways of unsettling our minds and disturbing our hearts. For example, some people have turmoil in their spirits because of their past. Things they have done which they feel guilty about, or things which others have done to them that they can’t put behind them. Maybe that describes you. Perhaps you’ve done things that can’t be undone. You’ve hurt people. You’ve made mistakes. You’ve squandered opportunities. And no matter what you do to try and make amends, it isn’t enough. It can never be enough. You can’t forgive yourself, even if others have. And so you live with the guilt of what you have done, every day. You put on a brave face and a smile, and you go about your days, and you laugh, and crack jokes, and you seem to be doing fine. But inside, where no one can else see, there’s still that guilt, that regret, that shame. And late at night, when you’re laying in bed trying to get to sleep, or when you wake up at three in the morning, you think about it, and you feel that anguish rising up in your heart. Again. 

And what Jesus is saying, to those who have sins and regrets in their past—which I think is most of us—what he is saying is that he can give you that peace you’ve been seeking.
He can give you rest. Because he can grant you forgiveness. Not partial forgiveness, or conditional forgiveness, but forgiveness that is full and free and complete. Because whatever it is that you have done, he paid the penalty for it on the cross. He took upon himself the punishment that you deserved. He suffered God’s wrath for your sin in your place. Here is how the prophet Isaiah puts it:

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

Even if the sins of your past have left a bright red stain on your soul, a stain that seems indelible, God can wash it away, completely. He can purify you of all the guilt of those sins, so that in his eyes you are no longer soiled, but white as snow; with not the smallest trace of guilt remaining. In legal terms, he can expunge your record, completely, so that there is not a single sin left on it. God will consider you to be no longer ruined, no longer damaged goods, but you will be his precious child, whom he loves and cherishes, wholeheartedly and unconditionally. All you have to do in order to have your guilt washed away is reach out to him in faith and accept that forgiveness. To be rid of it once and for all, and forever. 

Paul writes this in Romans 4:25-5:1:

“25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”

The death of Christ paid for our sins, so that we can be forgiven. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ showed that his victory over sin and death was complete, so that all who come to him in faith will have peace with God. And so, for anyone here this morning, who has never done that, finding forgiveness and peace concerning your past as simple as putting your faith and trust in Christ; telling Jesus that you accept his death as the payment for your sins, and that you desire to follow him. 

Now perhaps some of you who have trusted in Christ are thinking, “That’s wonderful.
But I’ve done that. And yet I still struggle with feelings of guilt from the past.” And that is a lived reality for many people. Even though God has forgiven them; even though God has removed the guilt of their sin, fully and completely, they still have trouble forgiving themselves. And what I want to say to those who are in Christ, but who still struggle with the guilt of their past sins, is that this grieves the heart of God. Because you are refusing to fully accept the wonderful gift that he has given you. You are tormenting yourself with a guilt that no longer exists. You are being frightened by shadows. Although God has assured you that you are fully forgiven, and that your guilt has been completely washed away, you are unable or unwilling to fully accept it. And so you are suffering unnecessarily. 

Therefore, let me be perfectly clear. If you have trusted in Christ; if you have asked him to forgive you for the sins of your past, in the sincerity of your heart, then he has done so. Full stop. Just as he promised to do. And so the guilt that you feel is not from God, it is from Satan. Revelation 12:10 calls Satan the accuser of the brethren. One of Satan’s favorite ways of attacking believers, and undermining their faith, and robbing them of their joy, is to remind them of their past sins, to bring those sins to mind, over and over again, to whisper in their ears, “Remember this? Shame on you! How could God possibly forgive you for this?” Satan does not want you to have the rest and peace that Christ purchased for you with his blood. Satan does not want you rejoicing in the fact that you have been forgiven, and cleansed from the guilt of sin. And Satan really does not want you telling others that they, too, can be forgiven and cleansed. And so he will lie to you that you are still guilty; he will accuse you of things for which you have already been forgiven. 

So what do you do? What do you do when the demons of your past start to howl? You need to confess. Not confess your sins; you’ve already done that. But confess the truth that
those sins have been forgiven. So just say this, either in your own mind, or even better, out loud. Say: “Christ paid for those sins on the cross by his blood. I am cleansed and forgiven. And I refuse to dwell on the past.” And then set your mind on something else. Do that as often as necessary. And over time, you will find that those intrusive thoughts of guilt and shame become less and less frequent. Why? Because Satan hates to be reminded of the blood of Christ. And Satan hates to be reminded of his defeat at the cross. And he will flee from you. So try it. And enjoy the rest and peace that Christ promised to his people. 

All right. I’ve been speaking to those who have turmoil in their hearts because of things they have done in the past. But for others, the unrest in their soul is not because of things they did, but because of things that others did to them. And so their hearts are unsettled, not because of guilt or regret, but because of unresolved feelings of bitterness, and anger, and resentment. So what do you do if that is the case for you, if something that was done to you in the past is denying your soul peace and rest? You need to forgive them. That’s the only way. You will not have rest and peace for your soul until you do that. Christ can give you the strength to do it, and you will need his strength to do it, but you must determine in your own mind and heart that you are going to forgive. You must resolve that you are no longer going to hold against them whatever they have done. And then ask God for the power to carry through on that resolution, the power of the resurrected Christ. In Colossians, Paul links the resurrection to the power to forgive:

“1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. . . . 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:1, 13)

Why is it so difficult to forgive? One reason is that we have an innate sense of justice, and we fear that somehow, if we forgive them, they will get away with it, and that justice will not be done. But that is not the case. Here’s why. If the person who harmed you is a believer, then they will be forgiven by God, because Christ paid the penalty for their sins, just as he did yours. And so if you want your own sin to be covered by Christ’s blood, then you have to accept that theirs will be also. On the other hand, if they haven’t trusted in Christ, and they never come to trust in Christ, then God himself will punish them for what they have done. You don’t need to do that; God has it covered. And his punishment will be exactly what they deserve; it will be just in every respect. As Paul writes in Romans:

18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Romans 12:18-19)

You do not need to take revenge on those who have wronged or harmed you, either by taking action against them, or in your own mind, by entertaining vengeful thoughts against them. God will ensure that justice is done. You don’t need to do that; it’s not your job. Just leave it to God and walk away. But how do we actually do it? If the need to forgive others is troubling our spirit, how do we do that? And I’m going to answer that by making a distinction between what forgiveness is, and is not. I’ve talked about this before, and it bears repeating from time to time, because forgiveness is so essential to our walk with Christ:

• Forgiveness doesn’t mean the hurt goes away. 

• Forgiveness doesn’t mean that what they did was OK. 

• Forgiveness doesn’t mean that they deserve to be forgiven. 

• Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you have to immediately and fully trust people who have sinned against you. 

What, then, does forgiveness mean? What is it that God is asking us to do? Forgiving someone means that you:

• Don’t hold what they did against them. You don’t hold a grudge. 

• Don’t treat them with anger, or contempt. You don’t speak ill of them or try to damage their reputation. 

• Don’t shun them or cut them out of your life.

• Don’t take vengeance on them or try to get back at them.

• Don’t attempt to harm them, or take any action toward them out of malicious intent

Instead, you are to seek their good. As God gives you the power to do so, you are to seek to bless them; you are to desire their well-being. And that process, although it may be difficult, will help to replace the bitterness and turmoil in your spirit with peace and rest. 

All right. That’s the past. The good news is that because of the promise and the power of the risen Christ, we don’t have to let the past disturb our peace of mind. But some people aren’t troubled so much by the past as they are by the future, by what may come. They worry, and they fret, and they imagine every possible worst-case scenario coming to pass, and maybe all of them, all at once. Plague, pestilence, famine, locusts, hail, frogs, earthquakes, floods, worldwide pandemic, economic collapse . . . and also, that their arthritis may start acting up again. Now, I’m poking a little fun at this, even though the things we worry about are real and serious. But in my defense, so did Jesus. Here’s what he said about worry:

22 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” (Luke 12:22-26) 

It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Do realize how ridiculous it is for you to worry about the future? As if your worrying could actually accomplish anything!” In other words, worrying implies that we can control the future, somehow, with our minds. That by worrying, we can somehow ward off whatever it is that we fear. But that’s a fantasy. Because we can’t control the future, no matter how hard we try. There are too many variables, and all of our knowledge, and our intelligence, and our resources are insufficient to control them. There are eight billion people out there, all making independent decisions that we don’t control. Not to mention the fact that we don’t have control over this globe we live on; we don’t control the weather, we can’t prevent natural disasters, and if there’s a comet or an asteroid headed our way, there’s nothing we can do about it. We aren’t in control. 

So we can’t absolutely protect ourselves, or anyone else. But what Jesus is telling us is that although we are not in control, God is. His knowledge and his power are sufficient, as he indicates here, to feed every bird and animal on the planet, to provide what every one of them needs, every day. And he loves us even more than them. By giving his son, Jesus, to die for our sins, and then raising him from the dead, God has proven beyond any doubt that he loves us, and that he will care for us. As Paul writes in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” And so, we need to place our trust in our loving heavenly father, rather than in our own ability to control the future. Putting our trust in God, and in his care for us, will give us peace, while putting our trust in ourselves, and in our ability to control the future, will only give us ulcers and migraines.

All right. There’s one last point we can draw from this passage.

29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus promises to give us rest for our souls. But at the same time, he invites us to take on his yoke. So the rest he promises us is not a rest of leisure or inactivity. Instead, Jesus’ promise is that we will have peace in our hearts while we are serving him. And our service to him, he promises, will be a light and easy burden, in contrast to the burdens we had been carrying before. How is that the case? Because we don’t bear his burden alone.
So many of our burdens are heavy and difficult to bear because we do carry them alone. We don’t share them with anyone. And Satan wants us to think that we are all alone in whatever we are dealing with. But Jesus’ yoke is one that he bears together with us. And in truth, for much of the time, he will be bearing most of the burden. 

It’s like one of those e-bikes, those electric bikes. They have a motor integrated into the pedals. And so you are pedaling, but the motor is multiplying the work that you are doing, and increasing your overall power output. You may even be pedaling very hard, but the motor is still doing a great deal of the work, especially when you come to a difficult stretch of road, or when you are cycling up a steep hill. There may even be times when you are completely exhausted, and you just stop pedaling altogether and let the motor do all the work. That’s what Jesus is inviting us to do; to share our burdens with him, because he is much stronger than we are; and at times, to just give our burdens over completely to him. And he will never leave us or forsake us. 

I’ll be transparent with you: sometimes, when I pray about a person or a situation, I’m asking God for a specific outcome. But other times, I just have to put it entirely in God’s hands, because I really don’t know what a good outcome would look like. I don’t know what needs to happen. All I know is that this person, or this situation, needs God to intervene, in grace and mercy. And so I just give them into God’s hands; I just step back and ask God to work in the situation as he knows best, to bring about whatever change, or healing, or strengthening, or understanding is needed. And when I do that, I feel a great burden being lifted from my heart. And I realize that perhaps that’s what I should have done in the first place. Because God is in control, and he knows better than we do. So let’s put our trust in him, and serve him with all our strength, and give our burdens to him. Amen?

The First Baptist Church of Richwood - April 19, 2026