<p>Column - I Will Give You Rest </p><p> </p><p>“Come to me, all you that labour and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)</p><p> </p><p>1. Relaxing and rest are different. Taking a break from labor is relax.</p><p>If leaving the field of ministry to take physical relax is called a sabbatical year, then it would be more accurate to call it a year of relax.</p><p>If one is a faithful servant of the Lord, there is no one who does not bear labour and heavy burdens.</p><p>I once met a pastor who had been sent out as a missionary and said that while ministering in Korea, he would burn out completely after preaching every Sunday, becoming utterly exhausted, and that he could no longer endure it, which is why he came out as a missionary.</p><p>That is because he performed the ministry of not obtaining the rest that the Lord speaks of.</p><p>If one collapses under the stress of the ministry field or the burden of preaching, it is likely because they do not know the mystery of being yoke-bearing and united with Christ.</p><p> </p><p>2. If one has received a mission from the Lord, they will inevitably face the same situation as the Lord in the field of their current ministry.</p><p>John the Baptist, who had the mission to reveal the Lord, asks, "Are you the one who is to come, or must we wait for another?" (Matthew 11:3).</p><p>This is likely the part where contemporary Christianity is caught in a dilemma amidst ambiguity.</p><p>If one were a saint of the Old Testament, salvation is received by looking toward the Christ who is to come.</p><p>In the time of Jesus, salvation is obtained by believing in Jesus, the Word made flesh, as Lord and Christ (Matthew 16:16).</p><p>However, John the Baptist harbors the thought that someone else will come.</p><p>When the Lord says that he will draw all people to himself after he is lifted up, the crowds who heard this ask, "From the Law, we have heard that the Christ lives forever; if You are the Christ, why must You be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?" (John 12:34).</p><p>This is the greatest dilemma of Christianity.</p><p>We are accustomed to redemptive-historical preaching from an Old Testament perspective. Our eyes and ears, which have stopped to hear and see Jesus, do not know the One who came in the flesh, died, rose again, received glory, and came as the Spirit of truth.</p><p>This is a matter of revelation.</p><p>While Jesus is the One who is open, Christ is a mystery.</p><p>We must preach this mystery (Col 1:27-28).</p><p>Jesus cannot walk shoulder to shoulder with us.</p><p>We may get the feeling that we can.</p><p>However, Christ becomes one with us in the anointing of the Spirit of truth. We are immersed in the Son and in the Father (1 John 2:24).</p><p> </p><p>3. One of the toils and heavy burdens of the Lord's servants is the uncertainty of whether they are going to the kingdom of heaven or whether they must take violent by force their way into the kingdom of heaven according to the Lord's word. (Matthew 11:12)</p><p>One can only feel at ease when this issue is clearly established.</p><p>One's ears must be opened by revelation (Matthew 11:15).</p><p>It is also stressful when people are not moved no matter how much the Word is preached.</p><p>They do not dance even when the flute is played; they do not beat their breasts, mourn, or shed tears of repentance even when weeping and squeezing out tears (Matthew 11:17).</p><p>Furthermore, no matter how much power is bestowed, they do not repent and return to the Lord following the atoning grace of Christ's cross.</p><p>One feels heartbroken and dispirited.</p><p>The Lord says, "Woe to you" (Matthew 11:21).</p><p>Considering that they can drive their own lives with Adam's free will regarding good and evil, they do not offer themselves to the cross of Christ and perform true repentance by acknowledging Christ in them as Lord.</p><p>There is no repentance like the prodigal son who leaves home of his own free will and come back home from death (Luke 15:7, 24).</p><p>This is a great labor and a heavy burden in ministry. It's so frustrated.</p><p>Those who are immersed in signs and gracious words, but just as they are being led to solid food, they end up escaping due to trivial faults.</p><p>As one who knows the outcome, the burden on my heart is truly immense. It is utterly frustrating.</p><p> </p><p>4. Then, one person here and one person there comes to receive the Lord Immanuel, who came as the Spirit of Truth after dying as Jesus.</p><p>As the Son desires, the event of salvation—receiving revelation and knowing the Son and the Father—occasionally occurs, giving joy to the ministry (Matthew 11:27).</p><p>Who said the ministry of pastors is beautiful? It is labor on the outside and a heavy burden on the inside.</p><p>If this labor and heavy burden were relieved by relaxing, he would not be a person of a mission, but a mere employee.</p><p>This labor and heavy burden do not disappear just by entering the break room.</p><p>Even in prison, Paul bore this labor and heavy burden and endured the labor of childbirth.</p><p>He even says that although his body was away, his spirit was always monitoring the Corinthian church (1 Cor 5:3).</p><p>He is the one who became the model of a true shepherd.</p><p>In fact, unbelief with believing in Jesus, is more frightening.</p><p>Like Mary and the other women seeking a doctrinal Jesus, they seek Jesus's cross and tomb.</p><p>Why do you seek the living among the dead?</p><p>We must learn to be one with Christ and to be with him.</p><p>Labor and heavy burdens are the characteristics of those who have not found rest.</p><p>When Jesus bore the cross, He bore all the sins of the world and also bore the Word of God.</p><p>He bore the cross while being one with God.</p><p>God made him bear the cross through the power of the Holy Spirit.</p><p>Learning this is precisely knowing how to bear the yoke with the Lord.</p><p>Instead of merely calling those who are weary and burdened to come, we must learn how to become one with Christ in the Holy Spirit. Just as the Lord bore the same yoke with the Father with meek and lowly, we too must bear the Lord's yoke to find rest, thereby obtaining the rest where our burdens become easy and light.</p><p>This requires hearing, and receiving revelation.</p><p> </p><p>Written by Pastor. Yohan Kim</p><p>Translated by Missionary Sookyung Chung</p><p>COME AND SEE WORLD MISSION</p><p>TO GOD BE THE GLORY</p>
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