Come To Jesus

Come To Jesus

Scripture: Matthew 11:28-30; 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26

I want to share a couple of songs with you that I learned as a child growing up in a small country church in middle Tennessee. At the close of the services we would give the invitation for discipleship for those in attendance who had not yet accepted Christ as their personal Savior. During this time we would often sing a couple of songs that spoke to the people about accepting Christ and why. The first song is “Come to Jesus.” The words to this song says, “Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, come to Jesus, just now, just now, come to Jesus, come to Jesus, just now. He will save you, He will save you, He will save you just now, just now, He will save you, He will save you, just now.”

The second song that we often sung during the time of invitation was the song you heard playing at the beginning of this broadcast, “Just as I Am.” There are several versions of this song, but the version that I have grown to love as an adult is the version sung by the group Acappella. The first two verses of the song says, “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me, and that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee. O, Lamb of God I come, I come. I'm not that strong, my hands are unclean, my heart sometimes fills with sins unseen. And yet He bids, oh, He pleads, but I can't understand, why He loves me, yet I come.”

Captured within the words of these two songs is my message for today. My message is titled, “Come to Jesus.” I want to make one thing clear this morning and it’s that we do not come to Jesus just once when we get saved; we continue to come; to look to Him in every situation that we face. That is the reason that I truly appreciate Acappella’s version of “Just as I Am” because it speaks to my weakness while also speaking to Jesus love for me in spite of them. As I understand this, even in the lowest points of my own failures, I know I can come to Him. He loves me that much. So this morning I want you to “Come to Jesus” if you do not know Him as your personal Savior, and if you have already accepted Him as Lord and Savior, I want you to come to Him again because He is your Lord and Savior.

Jesus said, 28Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. 30For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

As I read Jesus’ promise, it feels me with encouragement and reassurance because in these verses He uses the word “rest” twice. They are the same word in the Greek. Merriam-Webster has two definitions that caught my eye. The first was “peace of mind.” When you think about everything that the world is dealing with right now, our minds need this rest, this peace, this quietness, more than ever. Why? When our minds are inflamed (experiencing the escalation of intense emotions such as fear, anger or frustration because of situations like these) we cannot hear the Spirit’s “still small voice.” (1 Kings 19:12)

Merriam-Webster’s second definition of rest is “something used for support.” I read this as someone used for support, and that someone is Jesus! I want you to take a minute and imagine someone being in a weaken state after a surgery or illness and the nurses must get them up to start their rehabilitation. The nurse doesn’t enter the room and just say get up and let’s go. No, she come over to the bed, gently helps the person sit up on the side of the bed and then helps them out of the bed. Once the person is on their feet, the nurse allows the person to use them as support as they begin their walk down the hallway. This is the type of support that Mary Stevenson, the author of the poem, “Footprints in the Sand,” meant when she wrote the last few lines of the poem. Let me read two verses of the poem to you.

(Excerpt from the poem “Footprints in the Sand” by Mary Stevenson.)

“After the last scene of my life flashed before me, I looked back at the footprints in the sand. I noticed that at many times along the path of my life, especially at the very lowest and saddest times, there was only one set of footprints……..This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it……He whispered, ‘My precious child, I love you and will never leave you