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
Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.’”
When we experience troubling times, mentally and emotionally we are often so drained that we sometimes find it difficult to do routine things like getting out of bed and taking a shower or even cooking. Those are the times spiritually when Jesus leans down, takes us in His arms and carries us. Those are the time when He whispers “Peace, be still” to the things troubling our minds and attempting to take our focus off Him. The only way to stop this from happening is when we come to Him. We must choose to come to Jesus in that specific situation where we thought we could handle things but in reality we couldn’t. We thought we could withstand the stress and worry but it ended up draining us. These are the times when Jesus is saying “Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Again, notice that the way to receive rest is to come to Jesus – it’s a choice we must make.
I want you to visualize another picture from the poem that coincides with this verse. Remember the author said that during her worse times she saw only one set of footprints and God responded “It was then that I carried you?” Have you ever gone on a long walk with a small child? What would happen when you were on your way back home? The child would often get tired. The results? You would pick the child up and carry them. I have also seen people doing that same thing with their small dogs which simply amazes me, but that’s a story for another day. My point is this: when our children need relief from whatever they are struggling with they come to us and we give them that relief. That sometimes means picking them up and holding them, or “carrying” them the rest of the way home. Do you not think that our Heavenly Father is doing the same thing spiritually, emotionally and even physically for us? Do you not think during our hard times that He is not right there reminding us that this is the reason Jesus died for us – so that He could help us? Last week I talked about a scarlet thread reminder and this is a key one – remembering “why” Jesus died and what came out of His death. Our ability to have a relationship with God came out of Jesus’ death. And because we have that relationship, we can find rest when we come to Him!
Let’s go back to verse 28. The word “weary” describes what so many in the Church are feeling because of the constant barrage of negative news and updates being displayed 24-7. They are feeling mentally and, in some cases, physically “worn out, tired, and fatigued.” But Jesus says “Come to Me.” The verse doesn’t say “Jesus will come to us.” It says we must make the decision to go to Him. And how do we do this? We go to Jesus when we pray. We go to Jesus as we declare His promises in our lives. We go to Jesus when we praise and worship Him. We go to Jesus when we sit quietly in His presence. Now, in this verse, the phrase “heavy-laden” means to be “overloaded or to carry a heavy burden.” Again, does this not describe how our nation and the world are feeling right now? And perhaps it may even describe some of you who are hearing or reading this. And that’s okay because Jesus says “Come to Me.” And in the last part of the verse Jesus tells us why we should come to Him – “and I will give you rest.” Remember the definition of rest as “something used for support” in Merriam-Webster? Jesus says that if we will come to Him, He will give us rest; He will be our support during our battles.
In the Greek, the word “rest” means “to cease, to give rest, to give quietness, to recreate or to refresh.” During this time when so many are becoming mentally and physically worn out, Jesus says “Come to Me and receive the peace and quietness that your soul (mind) needs.” Jesus says “Come to Me and your soul (mind) will be refreshed and rejuvenated.” If there was ever a time when we needed to “Come to Jesus,” now is that time New Light. Now I want you to pay close attention to what He says in verses twenty-nine and thirty. He says, 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.
I want to give you a little history on oxen wearing yokes because it will really bring some light to these verses. The word yoke means “to bind.” A yoke was a wooden frame placed on the backs of oxen to make them pull together on a load when working in pairs. The yoke may also be a metaphor for something oppressive and/or burdensome. The metaphor can also refer to the state of being linked or chained together by contract or marriage, similar to a pair of oxen (see Second Corinthians 6:14 where Paul talked about being unequally yoked together.) So that is the background of what a yoke is. Now let’s take this one step farther and talk about how the oxen are trained to wear the yoke.
Two days before beginning the training the oxen is tied to a tree for a few hours which gets the animals use to being tied. The next step is to put them in the yoke. When you put the yoke on the oxen, and this is very important, you must always put the same ox on the same side of the yoke. The left hand ox must always be on the left, and the right hand ox must always be on the right. This is important because when trained the oxen will know with certainty what position they hold within the team. Now, to get young oxen used to the yoke and to facilitate their training, they are often put with an ox that is already trained.
With that background I want us to see exactly what Jesus was trying to relay to us when He said “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.” If we are “yoked” to Him then we represent the young ox that is tied to the senior, more experienced one. The younger ox is yoked to a more senior, experienced ox so that you younger can learn from the senior. The younger learns what to do and how to do it. Walking side by side with a larger, senior ox the younger ox fears subside as he follows the actions of the senior ox. Jesus said we should take the “yoke” He is already wearing upon us and do what – learn from Him. Jesus says “I am the elder ox and you are still wet behind the ears. “Come to me” and yoke yourself to Me and allow Me to teach you what I know about living the life of victory.” Isn’t that a powerful image? Let me help you see this just a little more clearly. I want you to think about having a mentor when you start a new job. What is the role of the mentor? Their role is to be at your side to show you how to do things “the way” they do it, not the way you did it at your other job and to be available to assist you if you run into problem. When we allow Jesus to be the elder ox we learn to do it His way – that’s how we get through this.
Let me tell you a personal story. When we adopted our daughter she looked up to her older sister. When we had her for just about a month, Victoria would follow Clarissa (her older, experienced sister) around and did whatever she did. She did this because she was learning how to live and operate in her new family. I remember one day we came home from the store and Clarissa had some trash in her hands that she needed to throw away. Upon entering the house Clarissa walked over to the trash can and threw her trash away. Victoria saw what Clarissa did and followed her to the same trash can and “acted” like she too was throwing something in the trash even though her hands were empty. As I watched this I thought about the role that Clarissa would play (and has played) in Victoria’s life. I thought about this as I was preparing this message because this is what we should be doing when we are yoked to Jesus. We follow Him. We go where He goes. We do not go our own way; we go the way He is going. Just as the lead oxen follow the commands of the farmer, Jesus is following the commands of our Father and as we follow Jesus we too follow the commands of God the Father.
Now get this, after telling us to learn from Him, Jesus tells us what He needs from us in order for Him to be “the elder ox.” We need to be “meek and lowly in heart” just as He is! In other words, we must be willing to be taught His ways, and if we are willing, He says we “will find (obtain) rest unto our souls.” If we are willing to let Jesus teach us His way, then in the process, we will obtain that which is already waiting for us – rest for our souls, our minds. What a comfort! Jesus says “Do you want peace of mind? Come to Me. Do you want to be able to sleep at night? Come to Me. Let Me teach you My ways and you shall have them.” Jesus says that when we are yoked to Him, when we are “plowing with Him,” our lives will not be burdened down with the things life throws at us. He says His burden is light and that means our burden will be light too!
There were times when the burden the ox had to bear was so heavy that he would sometimes stumble and fall because of it. But Jesus says when we are yoked to Him and we will never stumble or fall under His burden. Jesus said His “burden is light.” New Light please don’t rush passed the next sentence. When we are yoked to Jesus our burden become His burden and His ours. Jesus says His burden is light, His burden is easy. That means our “new” burden (Jesus’ burdens) will be easy when we purposefully yoke ourselves to our elder brother, the elder ox. Are you seeing this? When we are yoked to Jesus He takes our burden and we take His and He has said that His is light. That my friend is a great trade!!!
As we continue to face these uncertain times, isn’t it comforting that we can come to Jesus, take on His burden while giving up ours? Isn’t it nice that we can release our heavy load and take on a load that is no problem at all for us to carry? This is what Jesus has promised us. Remember this; Jesus encourages us to latch on to Him and to follow His footsteps. What we are dealing with today did not catch God by surprise and therefore He already has it worked out. God knows what each of us needs to keep us from being overwhelmed by what we hear and by what we see but we must “Come to Jesus.” So I encourage each of you to come to Jesus. Let Him take your burdens. Rest in Him. He will see you through everything you are facing. That’s His promise to you and me! And, He is God and the Bible says God cannot lie!
I want to close with a quick story. When Jesus was carrying His cross on His way to being crucified, He was so weak from the beatings that He could not carry the cross the distance. Three of the four Gospels state that a man named Simon of Cyrene, an African man, was pressed into service to carry the cross for Jesus. The books of Matthew, Mark and Luke records the following:
“As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry His cross.” (Matthew 27:32)
“And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry His cross.” (Mark 15:21)
“And as they led Him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus.” (Luke 23:26)
Jesus, who is identified in all the Gospels as the Son of God, needed assistance at His moment of suffering. Simon carrying Jesus’ cross is a reminder of the humility of God because for us it would make sense for God to have flexed His omnipotent muscles during His moments of agony and carried the cross Himself. And yet He does not. Jesus allowed a man that He created to help Him carry His cross. What kind of God accepts the help of His own creation? A God Who demonstrates humility. The Gospel of Luke records that Simon carried the cross “behind” Jesus – in other words, Jesus led the way and Simon followed. Simon of Cyrene, following behind Jesus with the cross, is the picture of discipleship. Christ has gone first and we follow in His footstep, bearing the cross behind Him. Now this is what I want you to think about: Luke 9:23 says, “And He said to them all, ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’” When we come to Jesus we make the choice to follow Him – young ox taking on the yoke of the older, experienced ox to be trained by him.
People read about Simon and see a man pressed into service to carry the heavy cross of Jesus because Jesus was too weak to carry it. But I don’t want you to miss this important fact. Jesus said “Come unto Me, all you that labor and are 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 unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) Simon took Jesus’ yoke upon him when He took that heavy cross that Jesus was struggling with off His shoulders. He carried the cross “the rest of the way” for Jesus’ crucifixion. But it did not stop there. When Simon took Jesus cross, Jesus took on Simon’s sins. Simon’s sins were much greater and heavier than Jesus’s cross. Jesus’ cross was made of wood and would decay in this world. Simon’s sins were spiritual and would follow him into eternity if they were not removed from Him. Wood that decays versus sin that goes into eternity. Truly Simon won out in this exchange. He received rest when He accepted Christ. I am sure by the simple fact that the Gospels mention him by name that he probably became a follower of Christ. Think about it, billions of people have lived and died in the last 2000 years but this one act of Simon keeps his name alive. Simon took on Jesus’ yoke which was much lighter than Jesus taking on his sins.
As the 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.”
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
(If you are ever in the Kansas City, KS area, please come and worship with us at New Light Christian Fellowship, 15 N. 14th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102. Our service Sunday worship starts at 9 a.m. and Thursday night Bible study at 7 p.m. Also, for use of our social media, you can find us at newlightchristianfellowship on FB. To get our live stream services, please make sure you “like” and turn on notifications for our page so you can be notified when we are live streaming. We also have a church website and New Light Christian Fellowship YouTube channel for more of our content. We are developing more social media streams so please stand by and we will notify you once those channels are up and running. We look forward to you worshipping with us. May God bless and keep you.)
