Matthew 11vs28-30

"At that time Jesus said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you've 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.

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 unto 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.'" Now, if we would be like Jesus, I believe there is no text for us more important than this one.

Of all Jesus' invitations to come, this is no doubt the best known and perhaps the best loved.

"Come to me.

Come not to anything else, but come to me, a person." Here's a person inviting us to enter a relationship with Him, and that is the main thing.

And as Steve Covey said, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." A close personal relationship with Jesus is the key to becoming like Him.

And here He offers a wonderful gift to those who will come, His rest, His rest when we put on His easy yoke.

Now, literally in the Greek it says, "I will refresh you," or, "I will rest you." And I want you to notice again what I've been saying already, and will say many, many times again, that Jesus calls us first to receive, to receive His rest.

Now, this is not something apart from Him, like something you would buy in a shop, the shopkeeper gives it to you off the shelf, but it's not part of him.

No, this is in relationship with Jesus that He will share with us the rest that He Himself enjoys.

To quote another well-known, um, statement from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself because it isn't there.

There is no such thing." So the rest that Jesus is offering us is something that we receive as a result of our relationship with Him.

And then, of course, there's the famous words from Augustine in the fourth century, when in his Confessions, he gives voice to the multitudes who've come to Christ down the centuries when he writes, "O Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." Now, what is this promised rest? Well, virtually all Jesus' words and actions have their roots in the Old Testament.