The Gentle and Lowly Heart of Jesus

Matthew 11:25-30

Immanuel – 6/16/24

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is the image of the invisible God, the radiance of His glory, the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. And God has bestowed upon Him the name that is above every name. One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!

(From John 1:1, Hebrews 1:3, and Colossians 1:15-18, Philippians 2:9-11)

And this supremely glorious Son of God, resplendent in majesty, high and lifted up; He says of Himself that He is gentle, and lowly of heart. Jesus, gentle and lowly of heart.

Read vs 25-30

This passage at the end of Matthew 11 is precious beyond measure. It is so rich that as I spent time meditating upon it, I became convinced that we needed two weeks to dwell upon these verses. This week we focus on the heart of Christ. Next week we will focus on what Christ promises: a yoke that is easy, work that is rest.

In full transparency, there is a book from which I am drawing much. If you have not read Gentle and Lowly – by Dane Ortlund – I couldn’t recommend it strongly enough.

The book begins by pointing out a startling truth about the heart of Christ. The New Testament provides so many insights into the heart of Christ. We can see His actions, hear His words, contemplate His being; and know Him truly and incredibly thoroughly; perhaps even better than we can know a spouse. But do you know that there is only one place – one single moment – where Jesus opens His own heart to us?

Right here, in this most precious passage, Matthew 11:29, Jesus opens His heart: I am gentle and lowly in heart. It is the only place in the entire Bible where Jesus tells us about the inner state of His heart: gentle and lowly.

Remember the words Jesus uttered just before.

“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.” -Matthew 11:27

But the Father has chosen to reveal such hidden things to little children. Jesus’ very next words are to call the little children to Himself: “Come to me.” And then He reveals Himself, “For I am gentle and lowly of heart.” What Jesus says no one knows – Himself – He then reveals: “I am gentle and lowly of heart.”

And what makes this self-revelation even more precious, is that Jesus opens this window into His heart not so that we would all stand back in awe – though that happens. He does this to encourage the weary and the burdened little children to come to Him. It’s a gentle summons. If you take out all the qualifying statements in verses 28-30, and boil Jesus’ words down to their most fundamental elements, Jesus says: Come to me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart.

Jesus reveals His heart so that we would come to Him. In other words, His heart is that we would come to Him, because His heart is gentle and lowly.

Before we consider Jesus’ invitation, let us first behold His heart – gentle and lowly.

Gentle: compassionate, tender, sympathetic, desiring to please. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench (Matthew 12:20).

Lowly: humble, meek, simple, unassuming, modest, accessible. He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant…He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8).

How prone we are to consider Jesus’ perfect holiness and righteousness, and to perceive Him as austere, rigid, severe; that He merely tolerates us with all of our fears and failures. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. He sees us with our heavy burdens and broken efforts, and His heart swells with lowly gentleness, and He says, “Come to me. Come to me and I will give you rest.”

Already we have seen Jesus’ gentle and lowly heart beautifully demonstrated in the Gospel of Matthew. He promised His kingdom to the poor in spirit, the mourning and meek, the hungry and thirsty, the persecuted.

We saw a leper approach Jesus and say, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” Jesus said, “I will.” Then doing what no one would dare do, He touched the man and cleansed him from all his leprosy. Jesus sailed through a storm to free two men from demon oppression. He loved a tax collector. He healed the blind and the mute and the lame.

The people that everyone else rejected and despised; Jesus never held at arm’s length. He drew near to them in their lowliness. He was gentle with them. He helped them. He genuinely loved them. Indeed, this is what makes Christ’s heart light up, beat a little faster: to come near to sinners and sufferers – for He is gentle and lowly of heart.

Think about it. If Jesus’ heart truly is lowly, then He loves nothing more than to come down into your lowest moment and meet you there. If His heart truly is gentle, then there is no amount of brokenness that He will not tenderly care for. It is who He is. It is His nature. He who holds the universe together by the word of His power is also the one who emptied Himself to serve the beaten-down and burdened.

Jesus, the Son of God, stepped down from glory to plunge into our world of brokenness, so He could say to us so broken, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden…for I am gentle and lowly of heart.”

We all have cast ourselves into a life of sin, where we are battered by continual waves of suffering. All around us we look and see nothing but turbulence, a vast expense of swirling cataclysm. We know that we have no hope of surviving such a stormy life; not on our own. We may be able to swim, but only for a moment, and certainly not long enough to save ourselves.

There is but one rock, one refuge from the waves. In the midst of the chaos, surrounded by waves that would carry us away, Christ’s voice rises above the tempest: “Come to me! Come to me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart! Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden!”

He is the rest in restlessness, the peace in the consuming frenzy. And if you come to Him, just as He invites, none of life’s tsunamis could ever sweep you away. He has promised it:

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” -John 6:37

No matter how broken, however destitute, however filthy; if you come to Jesus, He will never cast you out. He is gentle and lowly of heart. Your past sins, your present sins, your future sins; if you come to Him, He will never cast you out. It is almost too hard to believe.

Regarding our struggle to believe such a breathtaking promise, Dane Ortland gives powerful expression:

“No, wait” – we say cautiously approaching Jesus – “you don’t understand. I’ve really messed up, in all kinds of ways.”

I know, [Jesus] responds.

“You know most of it, sure. Certainly more than what others see. But there’s perversity down inside me that is hidden from everyone.”

I know it all.

“Well – the thing is, it isn’t just my past. It’s my present too.”

I understand.

“But I don’t know if I can break free of this any time soon.”

That’s the only kind of person I’m here to help.

“The burden is heavy – and heavier all the time.”

Then let me carry it.

“It’s too much to bear.”

Not for me.

“You don’t get it. My offenses aren’t directed towards others. They’re against you.”

Then I am the one most suited to forgive them.

“But the more of the ugliness in me you discover, the sooner you’ll get fed up with me.”

Whoever comes to me I will never cast out. (Gentle and Lowly, pages 63-64)

We all know this struggle: the struggle to believe that Jesus will not be severe or impatient with us, that He will actually treat us gently, that He will actually love us. Because we know our filth. But Jesus knows it even better. And His posture is so lowly that He reaches down into our filth to pull us right out.

Take note, that though Jesus is tender toward us little children, He will not allow us to fester in our sins. He loves us more than that. So with great care and gentle sanctifying power, He pulls us from the mire, washes us in His word, and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. It will take a lifetime, but He is not above the painstaking work.

All we must do is come to Him, just as He summons. He does not need your works. He does not need you to figure it out. He does not need your assistance. He does not need your promises. He does not need your disciplines. All He needs is for you to come to Him, come to Him with your sinful, broken-down life. Bring to Him all your heavy burdens of suffering. Come to Him and He will transform your life.

Again, from Dane Ortlund,

“But for the penitent, His heart of gentle embrace is never outmatched by our sins and foibles and insecurities and doubts and anxieties and failures. For lowly gentleness is not one way Jesus occasionally acts towards others. Gentleness is who He is. It is His heart. He can’t un-gentle Himself towards His own any more than you or I can change our eye color.”

(Gentle and Lowly, page 21)

He is gentle and lowly. It is His very heart. This means that He takes unspeakable joy from ministering to you, from lifting you up out of the mire. He loves to heal. He loves to bring rest. He loves for you to know you are loved. In fact, I am convinced that He loves to give these things even more than we love to receive them.

Let me illustrate this.

As an infant, my daughter Autumn came down with some sort of respiratory infection: coughing, gurgling, sleeplessness, and misery. Meg and I exhausted ourselves trying to help her, but it didn’t take long before there was nothing more we could do. Naturally, we took her to the ER. A battery of tests were quickly run, but to our dismay everything came back negative. No one had any idea what was going on in Autumn’s body.

Her symptoms, mixed with the uncertainty, compelled the hospital to place her in quarantine. Only Meg was allowed to be with her, isolated in quarantine, unable to leave. Every healthcare worker that entered the room was suited up like a spaceman.

You can imagine how distressing all of this was for us, having no idea how serious things were. I can’t quite remember how, but after a few days of isolation the doctors finally determined that she had bronchiolitis.

Autumn started getting better, the quarantine was deemed unnecessary, and eventually her and Meg were allowed to come home.

I ask you, in that situation, who do you think experienced more joy: Autumn for her healing or Meg and I for having a daughter restored? Even if Autumn were older, and could better appreciate the situation, the greater joy belongs to her parents! Our love for her is more than she knows, and our understanding of her plight was far more profound.

So it is with Christ and us. He loves us beyond our comprehension and His understanding of our plight is infinitely more profound. And remember when, back in verse 25, Jesus compares us with little children?

“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; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” -Matthew 11:25-26

So, when we come to Jesus, like needy and helpless little children, He does not receive us with indifference or severity. He is not too good to get down on the child’s level. No! He lowers Himself and receives us with all gentleness. And in His heart Christ rejoices, because He is doing the very thing that makes his gentle and lowly heart beat.

Make no mistake, Jesus proclaimed woes over the cities that rejected Him, that would not repent. We saw this in verses 20-24. If rest can only be found in Jesus, then to reject Him is to have no rest. It is to forever labor and be heavy laden. Such is the woe of those who refuse to come to Jesus in repentance.

But if you feel the weight of your burden, if you see the stain of your sin, then come to the foot of the cross. See there your Lord, gentle and lowly. With great strength He hangs under the weight of your burden, and mine, and every weary sinner that has come to Him.

It is His joy to bear such sorrows. For you would have been forever quarantined from God. But Christ came into our quarantine chamber, and totally cleansed us from our disease of sin. Forgiven, He has said. Righteous, He has declared. You are free. You are redeemed. You are reconciled unto God.

All of this because you have seen that Jesus is gentle and lowly of heart, and you have come to Him. Coming to Jesus is not getting yourself all better so you can leave the quarantine and go find Him. No! It is as simple as lying in your sick bed, turning your eye to Jesus, and believing that He loves you and He can save you. It is in that moment that He rushes in!

Read vs 28-30

And if you have come to Jesus, then He has promised to give rest to your souls. The way He will do this is by transforming your labor and your burden. See that in verses 29 and 30: take my yoke upon you…For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

A yoke is for working. His yoke is easy. A burden is toilsome. He bestows a burden that is light. Jesus does not promise a rest of laziness. His promise of rest comes also with a promise of work. His way to lift your burden is by giving you a different sort of burden. And when you take up this yoke, and lift this burden, in a way that seems strange to the world, you will find rest for your soul.

But these things are for next week. I pray you’ll return to hear how this gentle and lowly King of kings offers a rest that cannot be matched. Come to Him, for He is gentle and lowly of heart.