Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated in New York City on September 5, 1882. However, Oregon was the first state to recognize it as an official holiday. Several years later in 1894, the United States Congress declared the first Monday in September as Labor Day. It was set aside as a day to honor the American worker. It has become a day for cookouts and family gatherings. It’s a day when many American workers take a short and well-deserved rest from their labors.

On average, we are working longer hours than we did in the 1950’s. In fact, we’re working more than medieval peasants did. The average American works longer hours than workers in any other industrialized nation. On average, we work a full nine weeks more per year than workers in Western Europe. Labor Day is a good idea because a lot of us are tired!

Our Scripture today comes from Matthew 11. Today we’re talking about Labor Day, God’s Way. There’s nothing wrong with taking a day off of work. I don’t plan on working tomorrow myself. But there’s a spiritual principle in this whole idea of rest.

Let’s go to our text. Matthew 11, pick it up in verse 28. Jesus said, “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)

Jesus’ invitation is for anyone who is “weary and burdened” to come to him. And a lot of us qualify. That’s a pretty apt description of a lot of us here this morning. A lot of you have been burning the candle at both ends for so long that the two flames have met in the middle. You’re overstressed and overworked. You’re underpaid and underappreciated. And to be honest, you had to drag yourself out of bed to be here this morning. Weary and burdened? You bet.

But there is hope in Jesus’ invitation to us. When you get into this text and you discover the richness of Jesus’ words, there is a hopeful peace that becomes available. So let’s do that. What can we discover in Jesus’ invitation?

First of all, we can see that his invitation is exclusive. That’s so obvious that it’s easy to miss. But look again at his words again.

“Come to me…”  “I will give you rest.” Jesus tells everyone who is weary and worn-out, “There is rest available, but it’s only available in one place. Right here. Everywhere else you go will leave you disappointed. You’ve got to come to me, and me alone.”

One of the problems that a lot of people have with Jesus is his exclusivity. Jesus said things like…

“He that is not with me is against me.” (Matthew 12:30, KJV)

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NIV)

There is an exclusiveness with Jesus. If you’re not with him, you’re against him. He’s not A way to God, he’s THE way to God. And this exclusiveness comes out again in our passage.

“Come to me…”  “I will give you rest.”

Jesus reminds us, “You’re not going to find this rest, this peace in your life, anywhere else. It’s found in me and me alone.”

And the more you stop and consider Jesus’ words, the more they ring true. Where else are you going to find rest and peace? For example, are you going to find it at work? For a lot of us, work is nothing but a source of stress and worry. As the demand level on us increases, our stress level also increases.

For others of us, work just leaves us with a feeling of insignificance. Your company is so big, the factory has so many employees, that you don’t feel like anything more than a number. You don’t feel like you’ve done anything significant at all after your 8, 10, 12 hour workday.

Contrast these feelings of worry and stress and these feelings of insignificance with the peace that Jesus offers.

When it comes to stress, God’s Word tells us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7, NIV)

When it comes to these feelings of insignificance, God reminds us that we are “loved by God and kept by Jesus Christ…” and because this is true, “peace…[can] be yours in abundance.” (Jude 1-2, NIV) Our significance comes, not from what we do, but from whose we are. When our significance and worth come from God, the peace of God comes along with it.

People who look for rest, peace, fulfillment, and significance in their jobs will always be left empty and disappointed. Contrast that with the people who seek the rest and peace that Jesus offers.

And that doesn’t just go for our jobs. That goes for any other place that we look to find peace. If we look anywhere other than to Jesus, we’ll be left empty. Anything less than Jesus will equal disappointment. That’s why it’s so critical that we acknowledge that his invitation to rest and peace is exclusive…because he knows that, if we run after what our world offers us, we’ll wind up more empty than when we started. On the other hand, he offers a peace that transcends anything that we can find in our world.

I’ve told you before that my favorite ice cream is Black Raspberry Chip from Graeter’s. Recently, I had hankering for a couple of dips of this ice cream, but I wasn’t anywhere close to a Graeter’s. I had heard that this other ice cream shop offered the same flavor, so I went in and got a couple of scoops. And I was absolutely disappointed. The flavor was weak. The chocolate was waxy. It was inferior in every way to Graeter’s ice cream. With the first bite that I took, I realized that I had an imitation that couldn’t compare with the real thing.

Our culture offers us a plethora of options that will supposedly give us peace and rest. You’ll have peace if you make more money. You’ll find rest if you take this particular vacation. You’re life will be more significant if you lose some weight. You’ll be fulfilled if you achieve this new status or position. You’ll be content once you own this car, or this jewelry, or these clothes, or these shoes.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these, they are a sorry imitation if we look to them for significance, and fulfillment, and peace. Jesus knew this, and that’s why his invitation to peace and rest is unapologetically exclusive: Come to me, and I will give you rest.

As we dig deeper into Jesus invitation to everyone who is weary and burdened, we see that his invitation is not only exclusive…

It is also a learning experience. It is not just an exclusive experience with Jesus; it’s an experience where we learn from Jesus.

In verse 29 of our text, Jesus said, “learn from me…and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29, NIV) Rest and peace are learned experiences. It’s not automatic. It takes time to learn and develop a life of peace.

The peace of Jesus requires knowing Jesus. Knowing Jesus requires that we allow ourselves to be taught by Jesus. If Jesus is a passing thought that floats through our mind just on Sunday mornings, we shouldn’t be surprised that we don’t live a life of peace. We haven’t afforded Jesus the opportunity to teach us. If we’re not even sure where our Bible is, then we obviously aren’t spending the time in the Word that is necessary for Jesus to teach us peace. If our focus is always and only on the physical world that we live in and we rarely, if ever, give a thought toward spiritual things, then peace will always avoid us because we’re not allowing ourselves to be students of Jesus.  Jesus wants to teach us about peace and rest. The problem is that we choose to sit under the tutelage of other teachers. And so, if we lack peace in our lives, we need to look at ourselves first. Peace is a learned experience. We need to ask ourselves who we’re learning from. And once again, anything less than Jesus will equal disappointment.

In 2003, David Bloom, who was a co-anchor for NBC’s Today Show, died of a pulmonary embolism while reporting from Iraq. Just hours before he died, he sent an email to his wife, Melanie. In this almost prophetic email, he wrote,

“Mel, you can’t begin to fathom, cannot begin to even glimpse the enormity of the changes I have and am continuing to undergo. God takes you to the depths of your being, until you’re at rock bottom, and then, if you turn to Him with utter and blind faith and resolve in your heart and mind to walk only with Him and towards Him, picks you up with your bootstraps and leads you home…I tell you, Mel, I am at peace. Save this note. Look at it a month from now, a year from now, ten years from now. You cannot know now, nor do I, whether you will look back at it with tears, heartbreak, and a sense of anguish and regret over what might have been, or whether you will say he was and is a changed man, God has worked a miracle in our lives. And not to be trite, but that will set me free.

With Love and Devotion, Dave.

David Bloom learned peace, not in a plush, air-conditioned TV studio, but in the hardest assignment of his life in the Iraqi desert. It was here that he was forced to run to God to learn peace.

God uses some of our toughest experiences to teach us the most about peace and rest. I’ve seen this throughout my ministry. I saw peace when I watched a man lead worship at the funeral of his young wife who had died of cancer far too soon. I saw peace in another man who had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, but instead of wallowing in self-pity, took advantage of the time he had to witness to everyone that he could. I saw peace in yet another man who was falsely accused of sexually abusing a child. It was obviously false because he had an irrefutable alibi, and yet he peacefully endured the humiliation and heartache of a public trial.

None of these circumstances were fair. And yet, through these incredible times of pain, they allowed Jesus to teach them more about peace than they had ever known before. This kind of peace makes no human sense. In fact, the Bible says that the peace of God “transcends human understanding.”

A lot of you are going through a tough time right now. The hurts are many and varied, but they are definitely present in our church family. To those of us who are hurting, Jesus simply says, “Run to me. Learn from me. Let me teach you a greater peace than you knew before. Don’t turn anywhere else. Turn to me for a peace that will last through good and bad times.”

As we began to dig into Jesus’ words, we saw that his invitation is exclusive. We dug a little deeper and found out that his invitation is a learning experience.

Now, as we dig to the deepest level, we see that his invitation is eternal. Jesus promises that if you will come to him only and learn from him,

“you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29b, NIV) Jesus doesn’t just offer rest for your body. He doesn’t just offer peace of mind. It is an eternal rest, an everlasting peace for your soul.

Jesus is inviting all of us over for a Labor Day soul food barbecue. The problem is that we take such poor care of our souls that we don’t even hear his invitation.

There are hardly any of us here that go more than a day without eating. In fact, most of us eat every few hours. We live in a culture where our bodies are well-fed. In fact, our bodies are often overfed. And yet, in the midst of our culture’s all-you-can-eat buffet for the body, our souls are starving to death. We take great care to feed our temporary bodies, but our souls, which are eternal, are often lucky to get table scraps.

How long has it been since you did something to nourish your soul? When was the last time you fasted, depriving your body of food so you could devote your spirit to prayer? When was the last time you read a book that stretched your thinking on some issue of theology? How long has it been since you worshipped God outside of this building? When was the last time that you sat down as a family to read and discuss the Word of God? In a culture of unbelievable abundance and surplus, our souls are withering away from malnourishment.

The problem is that a starving soul is harder to notice than a starving body. When you’re hungry, it’s easy to recognize. You feel it. It’s unmistakable. A hungry soul is less noticeable at first. The effects of a hungry soul are seen, for example, in a life lived with no peace. If all this talk about peace and rest is just ringing hollow with you, it could be because you’ve been starving your soul.

The peace and rest Jesus offers is for our souls. It’s a peace that will outlast our lives and will outlast this world. The length of our lives is microscopic in comparison to eternity, and yet our lives in this world often dominate our time, attention, and energy.

The Bible reminds us all that, “You have been raised to life with Christ, so set your hearts on the things that are in heaven, where Christ sits on his throne at the right side of God. Keep your minds fixed on things there, not on things here on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:1-3, GNB)

This is a call for us to have an eternal perspective in this temporary world. The challenge is to raise our sights above the physical and focus on the spiritual. If you have made a commitment to Jesus, you’re real life isn’t even here anymore. You’re real life is temporarily hidden with Jesus in heaven. So that is where our sights need to be. It’s a call to constantly guard against allowing ourselves to get bogged down with our temporary problems and struggles here. A time is coming when we will experience our real life in the presence of God. When that time comes, our struggles and hurts and pains will be a distant memory. And when we understand this, it gives us a peace in our lives that really does “transcend human understanding.”

Tomorrow, a lot of us will take a short respite from work or school. I hope you enjoy the day. But much more than that, I hope we’ll all pursue a higher form of Labor Day. I pray that we’ll make every day a Labor Day God’s Way. The rest and peace that Jesus offers us is a life-changing, life-giving experience. He offers us peace to get us through heartaches and struggles. He offers us the peace of knowing that, no matter what hurt we experience, there is a hope that is sure. God is faithful to his promises, and if you have committed your life and your eternity to Jesus Christ, He will take you home to live with him forever.

If you haven’t yet made a life-commitment to Jesus, we want to invite you to do it today. Come and experience the peace of knowing that Jesus gave his life on the cross so that he might give you life to fullest, now and for the rest of eternity.

Mike Edmisten