Come to Me | Matt 11:28-30
This week is the first of this year’s Community Series on Jesus’ model of discipleship. For this series, we encourage your group to memorize Scripture together. Next week, you will review verses to begin discussion. Your first verse is Matthew 11:28-30,
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. - Matthew 11:28-30
Who does Jesus invite? What does Jesus invite them to come to him for? What does he promise in return?
What does it mean that Jesus is “gentle and lowly in heart”? How does this description motivate us to respond?
In his book Gentle and Lowly, Dane Ortlund writes, “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.” Do you agree with this quote? Which of the two postures (labor or heavy laden) best describes you?
What are ways besides Jesus that you look for rest, or a feeling of relief or being okay? How do you think the rest that Jesus offers might be different?
What is a practical step you can take this week to go to Jesus for rest?