Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hello everyone.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is Pastor Benjamin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City Orlando.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For more resources, visit our website at New City Orlando.com.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Join me in this prayer of illumination, asking God's Spirit to shed his light on our hearts through his word.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Brothers and sisters, join with me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let your word be our rule, your spirit our teacher, and your greater glory our supreme concern through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Amen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Our scripture reading this morning comes from the Gospel according to Matthew chapter 11.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hear now the word of the Lord.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: 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.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: 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 any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: 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.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is God's word.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Thanks be to God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You may be seated.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Thank you so much.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What a joy to be here.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I travel and preach a lot of places, and I always feel bad.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: If this is your first Sunday here, I'm not the guy.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Sorry.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So but I'm but we're glad you're here and come back next week as well.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Um it's so good to be here and to think about these things together with you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I want to ask a pretty personal question to begin.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I want to invite you to be honest with yourself in this question.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And that is generally, what is bothering you right now?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What's bothering you?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe this morning, even something you're aware of, maybe something you're just kind of more chronically aware of in your life.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: That is, when you slow down actually and pay attention, maybe it's at night, maybe it's right when you wake up and you feel this kind of unrest in your soul, and and something your your shalom is is disturbed.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What's bothering in you and what do you really need?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Like when you feel unrest or a lack of peace or a nagging anxiety, a large or small worry, when you think about maybe it's political turmoil in our country or cultural decay or your body's decay, where you think about maybe some relationship that used to be great, and now you feel it's kind of there's some tension there, some awkwardness there.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you're just aware of your inevitable fading.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Like I we had our we've got a couple of grandsons now and a third grandchild on the way, and it dawned on me the other day, and I thankfully we have six adult kids and and five of them live in town with us, and we were together all the time, so we have a very rich life.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But I realized that when my oldest grandson is 18, I will be 73.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And it just dawned on me like he will only, my grandchildren will only know me as an as an old man.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And and there's an appropriate sobriety I feel about that, you know, that I'm fading.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you're aware at that stage of life that you're fading.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you feel stuck in your marriage.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you feel some chronic or acute pain in your body.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you're worried about church problems within and outside.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And what do you need in those situations?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I think some of us might give external answers to that.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe we need a revival, we need more theology, we need more gospel, we need more education, we need to get back to the old days.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe some of you think more internally, we need counseling, we need therapy, maybe physiological or psychological counseling.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe we need better politicians, better pastors, better business leaders, better service workers, better schools, better policies, a better economy.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I think all those answers are fine.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I don't think there's anything wrong with any of those.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I think there's some truth in them.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But biblically, biblically and in the Christian tradition, Christians have always understood that as good as all those answers may be, there's actually something deeper and broader and more profound that we need, really, in all of our situations, personal and corporate, and that is that we need wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: We need wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And particularly what the Bible is going to depict, and I'll explain this crazy phrase later, apocalyptic wisdom, and I'll explain what that means.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So, again, as Pastor Benjamin just said, I mean, it's it's a joy to be here and to be at this transition point where you are going, you know, finishing up a wisdom series and then looking forward to Luke and the parables.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I thought a perfect text for that today.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And as much as I would love to give a lecture on Jesus' great philosopher, um, I won't be able to do as much of that as I would like.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I really want to just focus on a text.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I have written a whole book on that, and as I always say, I don't care if you read it as long as you buy it.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: That's fine.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Um I do have a book called Jesus the Great Philosopher.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So if you're not a reader, you I do have six kids.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I did say that, right?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: You got to keep that in mind.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So I do have a whole bunch of things I can talk to you about about Jesus the Philosopher.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What I really want to do today that's related to that, though, is I really want to turn to a text.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's the text we've just read.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And if you have a Bible, I'd love for you to look at it there with me as well.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Um, Matthew 11, 25 to 30.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I really just want to look at this text, meditate on it with you for a few minutes, and and to guide that, and especially at the end, I want to ask two questions that is always good.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I I love this discussion up here about reading the Bible.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And if reading the Bible feels really overwhelming or intimidating to you, or if you're an old pro at it, whatever it is, here's two really good questions to always ask when reading the Bible that I think any of us can do.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And that is, what is this what does this text reveal about who God is?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And what does this text reveal about who I am?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Because we really need to understand both of those things.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: We need to understand first who God is, but we also need to be aware of who we really are, for good and for bad, if we're going to grow into the life that God has has for us, has made for us, and has made us for.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And so what I want to do is just meditate on this text with you for a few minutes and then ask those two questions sort of at the end.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So again, Matthew 11, 25 to 30.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Now, this text, so I've had the privilege for the last 25 years or so of really focusing much of my academic and pastoral life on the on the gospel of Matthew.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: This is the thing I've spent most of my time in.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And over my years of teaching and preaching through Matthew and writing on it, I've actually become convinced that this is probably the single most important text in Matthew, which I would not have said 25 years ago.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Like I didn't see it.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But as I keep teaching through the book over and over, I think this text, 1125 to 30, really is kind of like the nuclear core uh of what Matthew's saying about.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And it's because it really focuses both on these two big ideas that Matthew's all about, Christology, we call it, or who Jesus is.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I think it's going to give us the highest answer to that.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And also discipleship, what it means to really be a follower of him.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So let me read for you the first part of it again, 11, 25 to 27.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Jesus said at that time it says, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and you've revealed them to little children.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: All things have been handed over to me by my father.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: 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.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Now, if you've been around the Bible for a while, that and if I were to read those verses and not tell you where they were from, I think many of us would say those are from the Gospel of John, actually, because it's in the Gospel of John that you hear that kind of language of this sort of what Aquinas and others would call the consubstantiality, the oneness of essence and nature of the Father and the Son.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I mean, this is the highest form of a bold claim of who Jesus could be.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I mean, did you hear it in those verses?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Basically, that that who can understand the God of the universe, the one who made you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: You didn't make yourself.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And there's someone who made you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And the answer to the question of who, how can you know who that person is?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Jesus is saying, actually, only through me.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: This is the bold claim of Christianity that is shocking, right?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And again, we see it in the Gospel of John as clearly clearly as ever, but here it is right here in the Gospel of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Jesus' authority is really being emphasized.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And the rest of the New Testament's going to talk this way too.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He's going to be described as the Logos, the actual organizing principle of the universe.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: We're going to learn in the other parts of the New Testament that all things came into being through him and are sustained by him and held together by him, that he is glorified with the Father.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: All this kind of language is the highest form of Christology.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And this is what is this text is getting at as well that he and the Father share this authority.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And actually, the only way to know who God the Father really is is through Jesus' revelation.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But this text isn't just about his authority.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's also emphasizing, did you catch that, on that who are the people that can actually perceive that?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Who are the people that can actually understand it?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Who is given the ability to perceive?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Because this is a great full room.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I'm glad you're all here, but there are more people that are not in this room in Orlando than there are in all the other churches combined than there are in that are that are worshiping the Lord.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So who, who and why do some people start to see who God is and who not?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And if you look at Jesus' answer there, it's not necessarily the ones that you and I would expect.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's not the wise, it's not the learned, the educated, the all put together, the theologians, the smart people, the ones with all the right doctrines, the ones who have morally clean lives.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's not the religious ones necessarily, it's not the successful ones.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's not the ones that I think you and I would give revelation to if we were in charge of it.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And it's important to know, these those are not bad things.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's not bad to be educated, it's not bad to be intelligent, it's not bad to have good doctrine, it's not bad to be a theologian, all these kind of things.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Wise and intelligent are not pejorative terms, but what we have to realize, and what Jesus is saying here, is that those things that we value actually have no inherent value for what you and I actually need.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What we actually need is not education and just right doctrine as important as those things are.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What we need is wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And in fact, the ones to whom this wisdom of who God is is given, did you see it?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's the little ones that they've been hidden from the wise understanding, but revealed to the little children, to the to the little ones, the least of these, the ones who do not necessarily have any power or prestige or opportunities, even as we might think.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And this is this fundamental reversal of human values that you're gonna see as you go through Luke and the parables, it's gonna be just hammered by Luke constantly, that God is coming and showing that what He values is not what we value.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: This is this fundamental reversal of human values, and this is the paradox that actually learning and success and accolades can paradoxically sometimes be a hindrance to what we actually need, which is God's wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Not because there's anything wrong with them inherently, but because to be a little one, to be a little child means to be, as Augustine says, the little ones are the humble who do not presume about themselves, because where there is humility, there's wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So Jesus is actually praying, confessing what is true to God, that God reveals Himself to the ones who don't think they deserve it, to the ones who don't necessarily have it all together, to the truly humble.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And so this is why we call this apocalyptic wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Apocalypse is kind of a weird-sounding word and has some associations that it doesn't really have in the Bible, but it what it means is just revealed.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It means revealed wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And that is, friends, that the wisdom that you and I need to navigate our individual lives and our corporate lives, big national problems, wayward children in our homes, difficult marriages, conflicts with coworkers, in your next door neighbor, how to handle money or a cancer report.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: The wisdom that we need is not going to be found simply in the latest book or a particular Substack or YouTube channel.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Those things can be helpful.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But the wisdom that you and I need is a gift that is revealed in God's sovereignty to the humble.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: For it to be apocalyptic is to be graciously revealed.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It breaks through our blindness and our hardness of heart.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And what I'm really excited about for you coming up in the next months is that the parables, and Luke's parables are really great, are all about this.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: This is how I want you to think about the series you're about to run to.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: They're all apocalyptic wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: They're retraining our imaginations, they're retraining our sensibilities for who God is and who we are and how He's inhabiting us to inviting us to inhabit the world.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So whenever I teach on these verses, I always like to pause here and say, what would you expect the next verses to be?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: After Jesus says, No one knows the Father except for through me and the one I choose to reveal, and I have all authority in the earth.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What would you expect the next verses to be?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What would you say if that was you?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I think I'd be like, so buckle up.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe throw down some Jewish gang symbols or something and just be like, so oi, watch out.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: You know, like we're because I'm about to tell you a bunch of stuff, right?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And you better listen.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What Jesus says is, I think, some of the most precious and sweetest and heart wrenching with beauty, words.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: This is why this has become my very favorite passage, not only Matthew of all of Scripture.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He says in verse 28, So come to me.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: All who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I'll give you shalom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I'll give you that deep peace that you is so elusive to find.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: What we see here is again this gent gentle and humble, this hospitable, very personal, welcoming from Jesus.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I always like to remind us when we read the Bible, people were drawn to Jesus.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I know in in this tradition you're not keen, and I understand this is not my conviction, but I respect this on images of Jesus, so you probably don't watch Jesus movies and things, which is fine.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Um, but you're probably aware that in a lot of Jesus films and in paintings historically for the last 2,000 years, Jesus is often depicted pretty dourly, right?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: As kind of like intense and look down upon, you know, maybe you know, holding up a strong line or something.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But you always have to remember people were drawn to him, especially the unsuccessful.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: People found Jesus welcoming.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And today, if you've never thought about Jesus that way, I would like to invite you to let scriptures inform your imagination that he looks upon you with a smiling face.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: God delights in his creatures.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And these are some of the words that help us see that.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He says, Come to me.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Oh, you heard we're in and heavy laden, and you'll find rest.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: This is an invitation with warm hospital uh hospitality.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But notice that in the midst of saying that, he says something quite unexpected, and he uses this image of a yoke to describe this this warm, hospitable welcome.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I don't know if you've ever thought about a yoke because it's not a symbol we use in our Christian tradition very much.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But there are different kinds of yokes in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: There's like a what you might think of as like a double yoke that you tie animals together with.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Paul uses this in the Corinthian correspondence to talk about not being unequally yoked.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But I think here he's talking about the other kind of yoke, which is a single yoke, which you put, either maybe a human might put on to carry something, but especially what you put on an animal to guide them, to direct them in the path of the fields.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And whatever kind of yoke it is, though, even though I think that's what's going on here in the imagery, this is totally unexpected and doesn't seem to go along with the idea of him welcoming us in this warm way.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Because a yoke is a picture of leading, of guiding, really of submission.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And in fact, in the Old Testament, it's used primarily negative to refer to like a bad king, like putting a yoke upon you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Though in the Jewish literature between the uh Old Testament and the New Testament, there actually this image of a yoke ends up being used several times in a more positive way to refer to instruction, either and submission to Torah, God's instruction, andor to the kingdom of God.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: The rabbis talk this way after the before and after the time of Jesus as well.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And in fact, there it's very interesting.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: There was another Jesus sometime before this, named Jesus ben Sirah, and we have his writings.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He was a wisdom teacher, and he talks about this sort of yoke in this way of taking the yoke of Torah or wisdom upon yourself here.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And he was a faithful Jew, this Ben Sirah, who says this acquire wisdom for yourselves without money, put your neck under her yoke and let your souls receive instruction.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It is to be found close by.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And this is exactly what you see all throughout the Gospels, like in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, You've heard it said, I say to you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Or uh the wise and foolish builders at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, anyone who hears these words of mine and listens to them, or you think of the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, where Jesus says, All authority has been given to me, go and make disciples, right?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: In other words, here as in other places in the New Testament, what we see is that Jesus himself is wisdom incarnate.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He's not only the instrument, he's not only like another prophet or a king or a philosopher, he uses those things who gives wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He actually is saying, take my yoke upon you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And this is not in competition with God's instructions, this is not in competition with the kingdom, but it's emphasizing that the Christian faith believes that God's own wisdom has become a person.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And so that person then says, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Jesus Himself is the gift of wisdom that you and I need.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So as important as it is.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: To grow in biblical and theological knowledge, all these kind of things, he's saying what you and I need is to actually connect with him, not just to grow in knowledge, but actually be connected.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And he uses this image of a yoke to do that.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But here's the real dilemma.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Here's the really odd thing.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Why would he say to those who are weary and heavy laden, those who are aware of our needs and our brokenness, why would he say, take a yoke?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I love how one commentator says it, people who are burdened, they don't need a yoke.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: They need a mattress or a vacation, right?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But the reason he says this is because he's giving himself.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And notice that the rest that Jesus gives is not actually the reason he uses the image of a yoke, it's not a relaxation of the call of God in our lives, but it's a new kind of relationship to God that we may not have known before.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: A new kind of relationship.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It is a yoke, it is a guidance, but it's one that actually, paradoxically, gives life.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Because you see, friends, grace doesn't mean that you and I can do whatever we want.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Grace is a freedom from slavery to our own foolishness.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And it's a submission to God's goodness for us.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Jesus' yoke is a loving, forgiving invitation to true life.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's a gift inviting us to submit to something else to find freedom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's like the yoke of a marriage that binds you and restricts you in certain aspects of love, but is exactly that binding that enables the deepest kind of love.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's like the yoke of learning to play scales on an instrument.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: That who loves that, especially when you're a kid?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Nobody.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But when you submit to the learning of the yoke of the scales that enables you to play beautiful music, it's really like the yoke of any discipline that you might give yourself to.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It actually gives freedom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's like the yoke of having a liturgy or a catechism that they may be painful to memorize and learn, but they actually give you the freedom of knowledge.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And herein, friends, lies the great Christian paradox that Jesus reveals.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: That freedom actually comes through submission, that gain comes through loss, that joy comes through suffering, and then ultimately life only comes through death.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And if I can kind of paraphrase some of the things he said in various places, how he describes this text, he says, How in the world could a yoke be life-giving?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's a burden.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And he says, the yoke, Jesus' yoke on our lives is like the burden of feathers to a bird.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: They do make the bird heavier, but they enable the bird to fly.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe some of you have heard John Bunyan's old poem that I know John Piper used to quote a lot: run, John, run, the law commands, but gives us neither feet nor hands.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: For greater news the gospel brings, it bids us fly and gives us wings.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And this is Jesus' invitation to us today to submit to him in this way.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And so why is this good news?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Well, it's given to the humble, it's given to the broken, it's given to the needy, it's given to the little ones.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He doesn't say, Come to me, all you who are successful and beautiful and have it together and never have worries or anxieties.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But come, all you who are honest and aware of your needs and are weary.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And the good news is that Jesus is what his yoke is like.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He is gentle and humble and lowly.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So to wrap this up, what does this reveal about God?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And what does it reveal about us?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Well, very briefly, just two brief thoughts.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: One is we are weak, but he is strong.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: We are weak, but he is strong.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Our lives are marked by burdens and needs and hopes and disappointments, and ultimately very little control.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But it is precisely here where God meets us and grants us what we really need: his own wisdom in himself.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Our weaknesses, our failures, our burdens, our weariness, our childness, they're actually not hindrances to knowing God.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: But paradoxically and graciously, haven't you known this?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: It's when we are at the end of ourselves and are honest about our needs, that's when we find God.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: When things are going well, it's really hard to find God.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And God knows that.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I often think of the Apostle Paul's experience as he describes it in 2 Corinthians.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He says he was afflicted, he was burdened beyond his strength, he despaired even of life itself.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He felt like he had received a death sentence on his life.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And in that place did he fully experience God's comfort and deliverance.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And God saw, and Paul saw that behind all of his suffering, God's kind hand was there to actually meet him.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And he says, When I'm weak, then I'm strong.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And the second thing I'd recommend to you, brothers and sisters, is that whenever you and I become aware of our need for wisdom, whether it's navigating a decision big or small, or processing a cancer report, or figuring out how to relate to a wayward child, maybe you need to make a career move, maybe reconcile a relationship that you messed up, maybe you have to deal with some just just something disturbing your shalom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Remember Jesus' words from just a few chapters before this in chapter seven?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He says to us, ask, seek, knock.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Another beloved passage.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: He says, Ask and it will be given to you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Seek and you will find, knock, and it will be open to you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: For everyone who asks receives.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: The one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will be opened.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And which one of you, I love this text, which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Or if his son asks him for a fish, who will give him a serpent?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him, including the wisdom he needed?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I was standing on the this promise this morning as I got out of bed and got on my knees and just felt really insecure about this sermon.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I remembered this text.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: That God is a father who loves me, and He, I love to give gifts to my children.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: How much more will He help me today?
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And that's what He, that's His smiling face upon you today, no matter what you're facing.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So if you're a kid today or an adolescent in school, you have so many pressures, so many uncertainties, so many changes happening in your body and your life, seek the Lord.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Seek the Lord.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Pray for to him for wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: If you're a young single trying to figure out your future, all this uncertainty, excitement, and uncertainty, seek the Lord.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Ask him for his wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you're a young married, and some of you are having great times.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Some of you are really not having a good time in your early marriage.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you've got needs.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Seek the Lord.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Humble yourself and ask God to guide you in wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you're in your 40s, that pressure tank time of life with its mixture of successes and disappointments.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: You've got a school, you're an Uber driver for your kids and all the other things going on.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: You have new temptations that can distract you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Seek the Lord and His wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you're like me in your 50s and 60s.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: My experience has been pretty great.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Um, but there are new temptations there to just diffuse my energy to all kinds of other things.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: If I say to you, seek the Lord and his wisdom.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Maybe you're in your 70s and you have learned a lot of wisdom from both successes and failures.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Don't tube out now, but seek the Lord and seek to be a blessing to others.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: So today, friends, hear Jesus' beautiful and kind and life-changing invitation to take his yoke upon your life, giving you the peace and the wisdom and the strength that you need.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Amen.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Let me pray.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: God, I do thank you.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I personally thank you for answering my prayers as a needy son to you, my heavenly father, today.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And I pray for all those who are crying out to you today that you would comfort them by your spirit.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I pray for those who feel maybe some hardness of heart and some apathy today, that you would show mercy on your creatures.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: I pray for those who are not sure if they know you or not today, that you would uh make yourself very present and use us uh as your priests in the world to all to those.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: And we thank you for your kindness toward us, and we pray in the powerful name of Jesus.
Dr. Jonathan Pennington: Amen.