Matthew 11The Crushing Weight of Trying to Earn Heaven

Transcript

I have a 20 lb weight here and I could probably hold this for about 3 or 4 minutes before my body made me set it down. And for a lot of us, whether we know it or not, this is how we constantly live our lives. We're always trying to do things in our own power. We're trying to be charitable, nice to people. We live by our own code of ethics of what is right and what is wrong.

Thinking we're living good lives, but in reality are filling a God-shaped hole in our hearts that leave us feeling more empty. And this concept of earning favor with God or earning your way to heaven is exactly what Jesus is addressing in Matthew 11. The Pharisees had taken God's law into a way to earn salvation and earn God's favor. They even added to the 613 laws hundreds if not thousands of oral traditions increasing that weight of trying to do it on your own making people fail.

And it's something we can relate to today. So when Jesus says in Matthew 11, "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. Trying to earn your way to heaven results in that heavy ladeness or as I call it spiritual anxiety.

One of my favorite examples of this lived out is when the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, "Teacher, what must you do to inherit eternal life and Jesus lists off the commandments?" And then the rich young ruler says something so interesting. He realizes something is wrong in his walk that he's not right before God. And he says, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?"

Because inside he knew he was not right before a holy God. And Jesus answers him. He says, "Go and sell that thing you've made a god. Go and sell all of your belongings, your riches, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me." But the rich young ruler went away sad because he had much he possessed, and he wasn't willing to give up doing things on his own. And tragically didn't receive true rest.

So today, Jesus is extending his hand out saying, "Stop trying to do it on your own. Lay that all aside and let me teach you how to have the rest that Jesus Christ can only offer you that God truly wants you to have." And that's what we're going to talk about in the next video is what that looks like.

Transcript from YouTube's automatic captions, lightly tidied. Watch the full video on YouTube.