I. Let us set it down as a first principle in religion that all of us must come to Christ, in some sense or other, through things naturally unpleasant to us; it may be even through bodily suffering, or it may be nothing more than the subduing of our natural infirmities and the sacrifice of our natural wishes; it may be pain greater or less, on a public stage or a private one; but till the words "yoke" and "cross" can stand for something pleasant, the bearing of our yoke and cross is something not pleasant; and though rest is promised as our reward, yet the way to rest must lie through discomfort and distress of heart.
II. If you call to mind some of the traits of that special religious character to which we are called, you will readily understand how both it, and the discipline by which it is formed in us, are not naturally pleasant to us. That character is described in the text as meekness and lowliness; for we are told to "learn" of Him who was meek and lowly in heart. The same character is presented to us at greater length in our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, in which seven notes of a Christian are given to us, in themselves of a painful and humbling character, but joyful, because they are blessed by Him.
III. Nothing short of suffering, except in rare cases, makes us what we should be gentle instead of harsh, meek instead of violent, conceding instead of arrogant, lowly instead of proud, pure-hearted instead of sensual, sensitive of sin instead of carnal. Never fancy that the true Christian character can coalesce with the world's character, or is the world's character improved merely a superior kind of worldly character. No, it is a new character, or, as St. Paul words it, "a new creation." There is but one cross and one character of mind formed by it, and nothing can be farther from it than those tempers and dispositions in which the greater part of men called Christians live.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. vii., p. 182.
References: Matthew 11:29. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xix., No. 1105; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 84; vol. xxix., p. 30; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 37; W. Morrison, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 18; W. Gresley, Practical Sermons,p. 199; G. Huntington, Sermons for Holy Seasons,vol. i., p. 63.