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Love

Teaching Text: Matthew 11:25-26

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.

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

Jesus Draws Away

practice

Watch or listen to the sermon. Then take a moment of silence and think about these questions:

Ask: God, where have I limited my perspective of you in my life?
Listen: For new or renewed visions of the character and nature of God
Give: Praise for who God is and remind someone of their identity as a beloved child of God

Formation

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

What do you think are the key heart attitudes to engage in prayerful conversation with God?
Jesus called his disciples not simply by saying “Listen to me.”
- He said “Follow me”
The aim of the series is to see what Jesus is doing in prayer and to emulate him in our own prayer practices .
Jesus prays a short prayer here:
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. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
- We see:
  - Praise
  - Gratitude
  - Humility
  - Rest
We are beings of Praise - even if you take it out of the religious context, we as human beings are always talking up what we enjoy
“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with.” – C.S. Lewis
What you repeatedly praise and admire- has a formative effect on your soul.
This is one of the reasons the Scripture makes such a big deal about worship because you become like what you worship
What do we learn from Jesus praise?
- God is a Father
- God is Lord of Heaven and Earth
- God has the power to hide and reveal
- God shapes reality
- Sometimes that reality is contrary to conventional wisdom of the day
Gratitude. Certainly a direct relative of praise
But Jesus is grateful for the way God has set up the world.
God has taken pleasure to make sure the Kingdom of God is not just available to those in places of power and privilege.
“Jewish writings had, for a millennium and more, spoken warmly about the wisdom of the wise. God gave wisdom to those who feared him; a long tradition of Torah-study and piety indicated that those who devoted themselves to learning the law and trying to tease out its finer points would become wise, would ultimately know God. For the average Jew of Jesus’ day, this put ‘wisdom’ about as far out of reach as being a brain surgeon or test pilot seems for most people today. You needed to be a scholar, trained in languages and literature, with leisure to ponder and discuss weighty and complicated matters.
Jesus sliced through all that with a stroke. No, he declared: you just need to be a little child. Jesus had come to know his father the way a son does: not by studying books about him, but by living in his presence, listening for his voice, and learning from him as an apprentice does from a master, by watching and imitating. And he was now discovering that the wise and learned were getting nowhere, and that the ‘little people’—the poor, the sinners, the tax-collectors, ordinary folk—were discovering more of God, simply by following him, Jesus, than the learned specialists who declared that what he was doing didn’t fit with their complicated theories.” – NT Wright
“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 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
There is this profound relational nature to the Kingdom of God - which then puts a huge emphasis on talking and listening.
Humility is this essential element to grasping reality as it really is.
Not thinking less of ourselves. Thinking of ourselves less.
Think of ourselves right sized.
Though Jesus has every right to demand praise and claim status, He humbled himself. He made Himself nothing and God set Him in His right place.
This is the pattern for us.
This is the move we are to learn. We recognize and remain in the posture of receiving life from God.
- Receiving direction
- Receiving guidance
- Receiving mercy
- Receiving love
Rest
“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
A yoke is a burden
But it also makes a burden bearable
“The point in saying that Jesus is lowly is that he is accessible. For all his resplendent glory and dazzling holiness, his supreme uniqueness and otherness, no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ. No prerequisites. No hoops to jump through...
The minimum bar to be enfolded into the embrace of Jesus is simply: open yourself up to him. It is all he needs. Indeed, it is the only thing he works with...
You don’t need to unburden or collect yourself and then come to Jesus. Your very burden is what qualifies you to come. No payment is required; he says, “I will give you rest.” His rest is gift, not transaction. Whether you are actively working hard to crowbar your life into smoothness (“labor”) or passively finding yourself weighed down by something outside your control (“heavy laden”), Jesus Christ’s desire that you find rest, that you come in out of the storm, outstrips even your own.” – Dane Ortlund