The Lord’s Day Evening
January 6, 2008
Matthew 11:28-30
“The Greatest Invitation You’ll Ever Receive”
Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas
Now turn with me if you would to the Gospel of Matthew. We’re going to pick up the reading in the twentieth verse of chapter 11. As you’re turning to the eleventh chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, let me say that in three weeks time, the beginning of February, in the evening services we’ll be beginning a new series of sermons on the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and that will take us at least through 2008. Perhaps a little longer, but at least 2008. So we’re going to spend some Sunday evenings in the period of the great Persian Empire and the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile.
But tonight I want us to turn to a very, very familiar text. It was a text that spoke to me in December of 1971. Over the last few weeks I have been reading a book by John Stott, a brand new book. He’s written over forty books, but this is his latest…(he’s an octogenarian these days…) called The Living Church. And as I was reading that book, I was reminded of another that he had written called Why I Am a Christian. Why I Am a Christian… it’s a very simple, straightforward book. The final chapter of the book is based on this passage that’s before us. It was through reading John Stott’s Basic Christianity back in December of 1971, that as an eighteen year old I was converted—having never read the Bible, having hardly ever been inside a church. I was eighteen years old; I was studying physics and mathematics at university. I was more into empiricism than Christianity, for sure! But that book was like a bullet between the eyes. And in the center of that book somewhere, he cited this verse that we’re going to look at this afternoon in Matthew 11:28. And we’ve been singing about it more or less since we began the service this afternoon: “Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden.”
Before we read the passage together, let’s look to God in prayer.
Our Father, we always need You. We cannot do anything in and of ourselves. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it. But we need You especially when we read the Bible, because we cannot understand it properly unless You shine a light into our hearts, that You remove a veil that so often prevents us from understanding what it is that You have revealed to us. So as we read the Bible tonight, we pray, Holy Spirit, that You would come. Help us to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, and all for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Matthew 11:20 –
“Then He [that is, Jesus]…Then He began to denounce the cities where most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.’
“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; yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will. 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. Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.’”
Amen. May God bless to us the reading of His holy and inerrant word.
Some of you will remember in the last few weeks the strains of Handel’s Messiah: “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd…come unto Him.” Cranmer, the author of the prayer book of the Church of England, in the 1662 version of The Book of Common Prayer, in the part of the liturgy for the communion service, for the Lord’s Supper, there are those very famous often-cited words: “Hear now these comfortable words…” and it goes on to cite the text, “Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” They’re called “comfortable words.”
Not all of Jesus’ words are comfortable. Were you listening?
“Woe unto you Chorazin and Bethsaida! For if the mighty works of God had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago…. It will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.”
Those are not comfortable words.
But these words are comfortable…comfortable in the old sense, comfortable in the sense that they give hope, they give encouragement, they give light, they give understanding. This is the greatest invitation that you will ever hear.
I remember one time I was invited along with another minister to spend the night in the home of a man who had served, and still was serving, as an equerry for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. You can imagine! We had dinner in his house. It was a very elegant house in the west end of London. We had pheasant for dinner. It was the one and only time that I’d ever eaten pheasant. We asked him all kinds of questions about Her Majesty—most of which he didn’t answer! It was a great honor to be invited to spend the night in his home. I probably will always remember it.
But this is the greatest invitation that you will ever receive: “Come unto me,” Jesus says. It is the greatest invitation for at least three reasons.
I. This invitation speaks to those who are weary and heavy laden.
It is the greatest invitation, first of all, because it addresses the greatest need that we have. It speaks to those who are weary and heavy laden, and burdened; weighed down.
Do you remember the woman at the well, depicted in the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel? The woman of Samaria? She comes at a time of day to draw water when she would not have to meet anyone. Her life is full of burdens and toils, many of them – perhaps most of them…perhaps even all of them – of her own doing. People had ostracized her for months, and perhaps years. She was an outcast, and Jesus says to her, “Come unto Me.” Do you remember what she said when she went back to the town? “Come! See a man that told me all that I ever did!” A man who knew all of her past, and yet could say to her, “Come unto me.”
There were two men in the temple, Jesus says. And do you remember one of them? He prays a prayer, of sorts. And he says, “Lord, I thank You that You have made me thus. I fast twice a week; I tithe…[I do this and I do that]…and I thank You, Lord, that You’ve not made me like that tax collector.” And there’s a tax collector…a job full of social ostracism in the first century because they were Jews siding with the Romans, you understand. And they were hated and despised. And he can’t even lift up his head, and he just beats his chest and says, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And he goes away justified. He goes away right with God.
To the one who recognizes and realizes his need, who’s bowed down with a load of care, who can only plead for mercy, Jesus says, “Come unto Me. Come unto Me.” He lifts, you see, the burden of life’s struggles, the burden of a broken marriage, the burden of rebellious, ungrateful children, the burden of aging parents losing their memory, getting frailer day by day. The burden of it! The weight of it!
The burden of loneliness…do you know what loneliness is? There’s many a person in this room tonight who knows all about loneliness. Not perhaps here in this sanctuary – well, perhaps even here – but when you go home, you go to a home that is empty. Your spouse has long since passed away. You open the door and there’s that stillness and quietness and emptiness. And in the still small hours of the morning, there is this engulfing pain and loneliness. And Jesus says, ‘My dear, dear friend. Are you weary? Are you heavy laden? Then come to Me. Come to Me.’
It says in the book of Proverbs that “a man’s spirit can endure sickness, but a troubled spirit, who can bear?” …A troubled spirit, who can bear?
You see, this is the greatest invitation that you will ever have because it addresses the very real need that we have, the need that some of us feel on a daily basis to be better than we are. Do you know what a crushing burden that is? Every single day you want to be better than you are. It’s a crushing, devastating weight! Do you remember in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress [you’d better remember!] right at the beginning of the journey in Book I, do you remember when we first meet Christian? He’s not yet a Christian. He’s in the City of Destruction. And do you remember? He’s burdened. He’s carrying this enormous weight upon his shoulders, and when Evangelist asks him where did he get this burden from, what was his answer? It wasn’t “the world.” No, the world didn’t give him that burden. It was reading this Book – the Bible – that gave him that burden. He can lift that burden, because He says to you ‘just as you are.’ Not ‘Come to Me next week when you’re better; come to Me when you’ve gone through Communicant’s Class and you’ve learnt The Catechism,’ but come as you are. This is the greatest invitation that you will ever receive.
Do you remember that story of Benjamin Morgan Palmer, when he was not in Columbia, but in Savannah? In his study…a man comes into his study and he’s irritated with Palmer because Palmer has been saying that they must come to Jesus Christ, but that they cannot come because they’re so dead in their trespasses and sins that they’re unable to do what they must do. And the man says to Benjamin Morgan Palmer, “You preachers, you’re full of contradictions!” And Palmer, without lifting his head, as he’s continuing to write, says to him, “If you think that you can do it yourself, then do it yourself.” And there’s a long pause, and then the man says, “But I’ve been trying to come to Jesus Christ, and I cannot…and I cannot.” And Palmer says to him, “That puts an entirely different complexion on things. Let’s take this to our Father in heaven.” And the man is led to the foot of the cross, where he loses his burden and experiences the powerful grace of God drawing him to embrace Jesus Christ as He is offered to him in the gospel.
My friends, this is the greatest invitation that you will ever have because it addresses the greatest need that we have. The greatest need that we have tonight is sin, and the guilt that is a consequence of sin. The day of judgment that Jesus has spoken about in the very passage that we read together this evening, that’s our greatest need. How can I stand before God acquitted? How can I come to the throne of Almighty God on the day of judgment? And Jesus says, “Come unto Me. Come unto Me.”
II. It reveals the greatest person you will ever meet.
In the second place, this is the greatest invitation that you will ever receive because it reveals the greatest person you will ever meet. Do you notice in verse 25 how full of joy Jesus is here? “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” – full of joy because He is about to say something of enormous import to the disciples. We tend, don’t we…yes, we do…we tend to think of Jesus as a killjoy who wants to take away all of our pleasures. And here is Jesus being portrayed to us as one who wants to give us the greatest pleasure that we can ever experience, ever! “Come unto Me,” He says.
We’re given a glimpse here. It’s one of these passages a bit like the one we’re studying in the morning in Philippians 2. We could spend weeks, months, simply expounding now these astonishing words, this astonishing self-disclosure on the part of Jesus:
“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.”
He is the Son, the Son of our Father in heaven, the Son in a way that we are not sons or ever will be sons: a unique Son; an only begotten Son; the Son of God’s love who was with the Father. And we’re given a little insight into that union and fellowship and rapport that exists between the Father and the Son. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son. He reveals the Father to us. You want to know what God is like? This God that you and I have an appointment to keep? Yes, on the Day of Judgment every single one here tonight has an appointment to keep before that throne, that great white throne. What is God like? Jesus says, ‘I reveal Him to you. It’s hidden, you see, from the wise and the understanding – those who consider themselves wise in this world – it is hidden. It is cryptic. But I make Him known to you. I reveal Him to you.’
There’s something exclusive about it. You can only know the Father through the Son. You can only know God through faith and communion with Jesus Christ. It’s so absolutely exclusive. There is no other way. Not Buddhism, not Islam, not Shintoism, not any of the other man-made created idolatries. None of them. But only through faith in Jesus Christ. “I am the way and the truth, and the life, and no man comes unto the Father but by Me,” Jesus says. To Him is given absolute authority in heaven and in earth. “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father.” He would say it again at the end of the Gospel of Matthew at the Great Commission: “All authority in heaven and in earth is given unto Me.” He holds the world, the universe, in the palm of His hand.
And He gives us a little glimpse of Himself. It’s one of the only occurrences in the whole of the Gospels where Jesus tells us His own character: “For I am meek and lowly of heart,” He says. The world despises that. What draws us to Jesus Christ? What is it that’s attractive about Jesus Christ, this one who says that He holds the universe in the palms of His hands? Who claims to be none other than the Son of our Father in heaven, who claims to be God incarnate? And you can’t…as C.S. Lewis once said, you can’t take Jesus’ morality and deny His own claim to deity, because a man who said the sort of things that Jesus says is either a lunatic on a par, Lewis says, with a man who says that he’s a poached egg, or else He is God.
And how does this God incarnate reveal Himself to us? How would you go about it? As one who is meek and lowly. And you know what that says? It says I can take anything to Jesus Christ because He is meek and lowly. I can take anything to Him. I can take my ugliest sin and confess it to Him, and there will be no lectures and there will be no tirades and there won’t be some fit of deified histrionics. Because He’s meek and lowly.
This is the greatest invitation that you will ever receive, because it introduces you to the greatest person you will ever meet. With all due respect to our Governor, I’m sure…I’m absolutely sure our Governor would corroborate what I’m about to say. Honored as we are to have the Governor of the State of Mississippi here in the church next Sunday evening, it’s a tremendous honor, but it pales into insignificance with the fact that I know Jesus Christ! I know Him! I have fellowship with Him, I talk with Him every single day, and He talks to me through His word, in the sweet dispensation of His providences to me day by day. This is the greatest invitation that you will ever receive because it addresses the greatest need that you have, and it introduces you to the greatest person that you will ever meet.
III. I will give you rest.
And, thirdly, it provides the greatest solution that you can ever imagine: “I will give you rest.”
Almost every night when I get into bed – and there’s nothing like your own bed! I sleep in all kinds of beds, and I’ve slept in the worst of them – but there’s nothing like your own bed. When your body relaxes into that pillow-top [I’m giving the game away!] ...it’s rest. There’s nothing quite like it. And Jesus says…and have you noticed, by the way, that in the next chapter all the stories are Sabbath stories? Why is that? Because Shabbat, Sabbath, means rest. He’s depicting the kind of rest that He gives: rest from our sins; rest from the ramifications of Adamic sin. And He heals and He cures, as a sign of that rest which is to come in the new heavens and in the new earth. You come to Jesus and there’s a peace that passes all understanding. Even…and for some of us who have passed through enormous trials and enormous difficulties…there’s a rest even when the storm is all around. There’s a rest.
I grew up in the ‘60’s. I was a teenager in the ‘60’s. You might not believe that. I didn’t imbibe the cultural tastes of the ‘60’s in any shape, way, or form. They passed me by. But I remember The Rolling Stones, because they’re still here! I remember Mick Jagger saying, “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Is that you?
“I’ve tried the broken cisterns, Lord, but ah! the waters failed.
Even as I stooped to drink, they fled and mocked me as I wailed.
The pleasures lost, I sadly mourned, but never wept for Thee,
Till grace my sightless eyes received, Thy loveliness to see.
Now none but Christ can satisfy; none other name for me;
‘Tis life and love and lasting joy, Lord Jesus, found in Thee.”
And then…and only then…when I’ve come to Jesus, when I’ve trusted in Jesus, when I’ve leaned upon Jesus, when I’ve given myself entirely away to Jesus Christ, when I’ve taken Him as my Lord and my Savior, and my Prophet and my Priest and my King, then I take His yoke upon me. Not the other way around.
Get that gospel logic right: grace first, then obedience. We obey because we love Him! We obey because that’s what we have been changed and transformed and regenerated to do. “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, because My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
My dear friend, I don’t know who you are. Perhaps you have come in here tonight as a visitor. You may be visiting friends and family, you may just have come on what you thought was a whim. And perhaps your life is full of trials and full of difficulties, and above all weighed down by the realization that you are not right with God.
“There is none righteous, no, not one;
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
And that’s you, my friend. And Jesus, this gentle, meek Jesus who is God, who has the authority to say this, He says to you – and He means it – His heart opens up to you, my friend, and He says, “Come to Me.” He’s not saying ‘Come to church.’ He says “Come to Me,” first of all. Get into a right relationship with Me.
There are so many in this building tonight who have done just that, and they’ve come to Jesus and they’ve found in Him their all in all, their everything. May you find it too.
Let’s pray.
Father, to any amongst us tonight who may still be dead in trespasses and sins, weighed down by the cares of this broken, sinful world, draw them now by Your sovereign gracious Spirit. Give them no rest until they find that rest in You. For You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till we find our rest in You. Hear us, Lord, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Please stand and receive the Lord’s benediction.
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.