Rest for Your Souls

Shepherd of the Mountains Lutheran Church, Pinetop, Arizona

Rev. Michael “Mick” Mathews

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 5, 2026

Sermon:  “Rest for Your Souls”      Matthew 11:25–30

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

God created human beings to be able to do work. When He created the first human beings, Adam and Eve, He put them in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. So work has been a part of human life from the beginning. But God did not intend for us to work all the time. It’s why He divided each day with evening and with morning – so there’s time for work and time for rest.

But notice that the Bible tells us that God set the evening before the morning – and the Jewish people to this day still count each new day as starting at sundown. Our modern society thinks of the day as starting at sunup. And I think that leads us into a wrong understanding of how life should be. We think of the daylight hours as being followed by nighttime, and so that leads us to think that we work hard during the day so that we earn our rest at night. Unfortunately, that leads many people to think that because they haven’t finished all their work in a day that they haven’t yet deserved their rest. So they push themselves to do more and more without a break. They stay up late and get up early, thinking that time spent on sleep is wasted time. Even our doctors tell us that many people are not getting enough sleep for the health of their bodies.

But what if God wants us to look at it this way: He gives us nightly rest so that we can then do the work He gives us to do. What if we don’t earn our rest by working, but instead receive rest as a gift from God that enables us to work? I like what it says in Psalm 4:8:

          In peace I will both lie down and sleep;

          for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

The ability to rest and sleep is a gift from God. He invites us to set aside our burdens and place them in His keeping for a time.

Thinking that we have no time to rest – thinking that everything will fall apart if we don’t keep it going – that’s really a form of idolatry. We’re really taking for ourselves the job that only God can do. We can’t keep control of everything. We can’t work day after day without rest. We can’t handle constant pressure without any relief, because eventually we’ll reach our breaking point. Our bodies will wear out, our health will break down, and we’ll collapse under the strain. How much better to remember that God is the one in ultimate control. He gives us the privilege of working in His world so that we can Him to make it a better place, but the ultimate results always rely on Him. Knowing that, we gain a sense of peace – a realization that we can let things go by putting them in God’s hands, trusting Him to take care of us. We don’t control everything – we can’t – but God can and does control all things for our good.

So listen to Jesus when He says to you, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The things that Jesus tells you are not designed to put more stress and pressure on you. He wants to give you rest. He says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me … For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” As the apostle John puts it, “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). It may sound like Jesus’ commandments to love God and love our neighbor will put extra work on us, but in reality, we find that it sets us free. It’s actually the easier way to live when we follow God’s commandments, trusting God to provide everything that we need to carry out His commands, trusting God that He will show us the right way to go. It’s the harder way to think that we’ve got to do everything ourselves, that it all depends on us, and that we’ve got to figure everything out for ourselves. It can actually be a relief to hear, “This is what God expects you do, no more and no less,” because then we know what to do and how much to do. We don’t have to keep worrying that we’re doing the wrong thing or that we haven’t done enough.

As the psalm says, it is God who gives us the ability to lie down and sleep in peace. Because not only gives rest to the body, but also gives rest to the soul. Jesus says, “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” (Matthew 11:29). In Romans chapter 7, St. Paul speaks about the spiritual struggle that we Christians often face, a struggle in which we find no rest for our souls. Paul speaks about knowing the right thing to do and wanting to do it – but not being able to actually carry it out. On the flip side, Paul knows the wrong things that he wants to avoid doing – but finds that he keeps on doing those things. How many of you have made a promise, “I’ll never do that again!”? Did you do it again? Do you still do that thing? And how many times have you promised to turn over a new leaf – to eat better, to get more exercise, to go to bed earlier, to stop losing your temper, to be kinder and more patient? Do you do all of those good things consistently? Paul finds himself worn out and discouraged by the fight. By faith in God, he knows God’s law and wants to follow God’s commands, but he finds that the sinful nature in him just won’t let it happen. Exhausted and exasperated, he cries out in frustration, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). That’s when Paul points us once again to the only hope that we have: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25).

Jesus is the only one who can give us rest for our souls. No matter how hard we work at it, we won’t be able to overcome the sin in our lives by our own efforts. We are doomed to fail because sin is too much a part of us. Only God can deliver us – and He has delivered us through Jesus. We can’t keep God’s commandments as we should, but Jesus kept them all for us. We can’t work our way back into a right standing with God, so Jesus did all of that work for us. He paid the penalty for all our sins by His suffering and death on the cross. We can’t raise ourselves to a new life with God, but Jesus gave us new life by His resurrection from the dead. So Jesus says to you, “Come to Me, you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest – rest for your soul.”

Pay attention when Jesus says those words, “Come to Me.” Jesus invites you to come to the place where He promises to be – where He promises to speak to you the words that give rest for your souls. Come to the gathering of believers, where Jesus’ word is read and proclaimed. Come to church, and keep coming. It’s why God not only appointed the nighttime for rest, but why God appointed a day of rest in each week. After creating all things in six days, God rested on the seventh day from His work of creation and He blessed that day of rest. And centuries later, when God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, He told them, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” “Sabbath” is the Hebrew word for rest, so we could also translate the commandment as “Remember the day of rest, by keeping it holy.” Many people assume that the commandment is just about taking a day each week to rest your body. But we really keep the day holy by finding our rest in God, in listening to His words that give rest for our souls. That’s why Martin Luther explained the commandment this way in the Small Catechism:

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word,

but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

This place of God’s house, this gathering of believers is the place where you come to Jesus to find rest for your souls. You hear the news that Jesus has done the work for you that earns your forgiveness and eternal life, and then He gives you that forgiveness that He earned by giving you His body and blood in Holy Communion. This is the place to hear Jesus’ words which comfort and revive us. This is the place to eat His refreshing meal. Continue to heed Jesus’ invitation: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

And the peace of God which passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Zechariah 9:9      Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

                  Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

       Behold, your king is coming to you;

                  righteous and having salvation is he,

       humble and mounted on a donkey,

                  on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

10  I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

                  and the war horse from Jerusalem;

       and the battle bow shall be cut off,

                  and he shall speak peace to the nations;

       his rule shall be from sea to sea,

                  and from the River to the ends of the earth.

11  As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,

                  I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

12  Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;

                  today I declare that I will restore to you double.

Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Romans 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Matthew 11:25 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; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 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 anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”