The Savior’s Summons
Matthew 11:28-30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Amplified Bible
28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavily burdened [by religious rituals that provide no peace], and I will give you rest [refreshing your souls with salvation]. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me [following Me as My disciple], for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest (renewal, blessed quiet) for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy [to bear] and My burden is light.”
Introduction: There are many invitations in the Scriptures but none more inviting than the words from our text this morning. This invitation is two-fold. First, there is the Savior’s call to come to himself and second He invites to take His yoke with the result being that we will find rest (a blessed quiet) for our souls. I want to focus on verse 28 and suggest that there are four things that we will be blessed with when we respond to the Savior’s invitation. First…
I. It is an Invitation to Hope – Man’s greatest need.
a. The worst thing that can happen to a man is for him to lose hope. This was the world that Jesus lived and ministered in. The Jews were under Roman occupation and it is estimated that there were between five and ten million slaves, (mostly women) serving the Romans in the Lord’s Day. Slaves were treated like property and their Roman masters had the power of life and dead over them.
We are living in a time of hopelessness. Study after study and survey after survey all say the same thing. People have no hope.
ILL: A group of students visited a psychiatric institution to observe a variety of mental illnesses. One of the individuals was a tragic case. He was referred to as “No hope Carter.”
He was a victim of a fatal disease and was going through its final stages when the brain is affected. Before he began losing his mind, his doctors told him that there was no known cure for him. He begged for a ray of hope but was told the disease would run its course and then end in his death.
Gradually his brain deteriorated and he became more and more despondent. Two weeks before his death he paced in his small room. He was in mental agony and his eyes stared blankly. Over and over he muttered two words, “No hope! No hope!”
After three years of Covid we have an epidemic of depression and despondency and people feel like there is no foreseeable end to how they are feeling. Suicide rates are at an all-time high. Did you know that on average there were 132 suicides per day in 2021. In 2023 more than 50,000 Americans died by suicide, more than any year on record.
One thing that is a heavy commonality among people who die by suicide is an unshakeable feeling of dread, despair, loneliness and hopelessness. Would it surprise you to know the Arkansas is in the top ten in suicide numbers in America.
ILL: In September 1988, Hurricane Gilbert hit the Louisiana coast. At that time it was considered the “Storm of the century.” It battered the shoreline, severely disrupting the shrimping business. Many shrimp boats were lost, causing great concern for several families dependent on shrimping for their livelihood.
On the morning news I watched an interview with a shrimp boat owner. He was asked how the storm would impact the shrimpers. With the devastation of Gilbert as a backdrop, this man said, “well, there is a good side. The storm will have stirred up the bottom of the ocean, making for better shrimping once we’re able to get back out there.” This man understood hope!
Stevenson, P. (2007). 5 Things Anyone Can Do to Lead Effectively (p. 18). Indianapolis, IN: WPH.
[by religious rituals that provide no peace], and I will give you rest [refreshing your souls with salvation].
II. It is an Invitation to Help – For the mess that they are in. People without hope also feel helpless. They may say or think that no one can help them get better and there is nothing they can do to change their life. They feel that change is impossible. ILL: In his Peanuts strip, Charles Schulz had an amazing talent for communicating truths like this in humorous, memorable ways. In one strip Charlie Brown rests his head in his hands while leaning on the wall and looking miserable. His friend, Lucy, approaches. “Discouraged again, eh, Charlie Brown?” Charlie Brown does not even answer. “You know what your trouble is?” Lucy asks. Without waiting for a response, she announces, “The whole trouble with you is that you are you!” Charlie Brown says, “Well, what in the world can I do about that?” “I don’t pretend to be able to give advice,” Lucy replies. “I merely point out the trouble.”
The real problem for most of us is Charlie Brown’s problem. “The whole trouble with you is that you are you.”
From: John Maxwell, Winning with People (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003 ) pp. 12-13.
“Come hither to me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.’ Oh! Wonderful, wonderful! That the one who has help to give is the one who says, Come hither! What love is this! There is love in the act of a man who is able to help and does help him who begs for help. But for one to offer help! And to offer it to all! Yes, and precisely to all such as can do nothing to help in return! To offer it -- no, to shout it out, as if the Helper were the one who needed help, as if in fact He who is able and willing to help all was Himself in a sense a needy one, in that He feels an urge, and consequently need to help, need of the sufferer in order to help him!”
Soren Kierkegaard in Training in Christianity
c.
ILL: Forgive us, Lord, for failures past,
Then help us start anew
With strength and courage to obey
And closely follow You. — Speer (Our Daily Bread, Jan 1, 2005)
III. It is an Invitation to Healing – He invites us to come to Him in our brokenness.
a. He mends broken things – Is your heart broken… bring it to Him. Is your family broken… bring it to Him. Is your life broken by sin…bring it to Him.
b. He uses broken things
“God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume..
c. He invites you and I to come in spite of our broken lives.
In Fox’s Book of Martyrs, there is the story of a 26 year old mother named Perpetua. The early church was growing dramatically and she came to faith in Jesus. The Roman government was trying to get her to renounce her faith but she refused. They threw her in prison. Her father came and begged her to pay homage to the Romans so she could be freed and care for him as he was elderly. They drug her father away and killed him. They brought her son to her and she held him in her arms but they took him away and killed him as well. She died, of a broken heart. Every mother can understand that. It’s almost unbearable. As Mary looked up on Jesus hanging on the cross, her heart must have broken too.
There IS HEALING in forgiveness.
A London psychiatrist once told Dr. Billy Graham that 70% of the people in treatment in England could be released if they could find forgiveness. Their problem, he said, was guilt, and they could find no relief from the grief and pressure under which they lived.
Often people today are told they have nothing to be guilty about, and in some circumstances that is true. Some people feel guilty about things they have not done: things that have been done to them by responsible adults, who have abused and misused them. They need help to see who is to blame. But most people with guilty consciences don’t need to be told that they are guiltless. Deep down they know there something to be guilty for, and what they need is not to hear that they are guiltless, but that they are forgiven.
(SOURCE: from a sermon by Daniel Villa, SermonCentral.com, "Be Forgiven" 6/30/08)
ILL: ONE DAY I WILL BE HEALED
A few weeks ago, I saw a special on TV about faith healers. In that show, Lisa Ling went to the meeting of a renowned faith healer where she interviewed a man named Steve. When he was 18, Steve was in a car crash that left him with brain injury and a speech impediment. Years after that, he fell off a roof and was paralyzed from the waist down.
Doctors said Steve would never walk again--but Steve said God had told him this was his time to be healed. He was completely convinced that he would leave that meeting walking and pushing his wheelchair. His faith was absolute...he didn’t express a single doubt that God was about to heal him.
On the last day of the meeting, Steve’s turn came. He went forward and sat in a row of people where the faith-healer touched his forehead and said "Bam!" Then a group of people prayed over him, reached under his arms, and lifted him up--but then after a couple of minutes, they set him back in his wheel chair. His condition was unchanged.
After this, Lisa Ling became very concerned for Steve. She knew he was completely convinced that he would be healed and she wondered what would happen to his faith. When she found Steve after the meeting, though, she was amazed. He was disappointed --- but his faith was unshaken.
In his halting voice, Steve told her, "It wasn’t my time to be healed--but one day I will walk and run--when I get to Heaven, God will give me a new body." Then Steve laid his hand on Lisa and prayed for her.
When I saw that, I realized I was witnessing a miracle. The miracle wasn’t in the man’s legs...it was a miracle of his soul--the light of Jesus was shining out of his heart. After all, a physical healing is always temporary. But spiritual healing lasts for eternity.
While he was on earth, Jesus healed people who were paralyzed (like Steve.) He healed the sick, the blind, the deaf, the crippled, and the lepers. He even raised the dead. But notice that Jesus didn’t "hype" the healings. In fact, he often instructed people not to tell anyone about their miracle.
Jesus made it clear that healing was NOT the main event. Physical healings are temporary at best. (After all, none of those folks Jesus healed are still alive today, are they?) Jesus performed signs and wonders so we would know that He IS the one and only Son of God.
ILL: Dr. David Seamands in his book Healing for Damaged Emotions says, “The two primary causes of emotional stress are the failure to receive forgiveness and the failure to forgive.” [Wheaton, ILL: Victor Books, 1989, pp.29-30]
IV. It is an Invitation to a Heavenly Home
When I was growing up like many of you I watched the movie Wizard of Oz. The title character, Dorothy was disaffected with her home and eventually ended up in a place called Oz. You know the story that when Dorothy was about to be sent back home she is reminded that there is “no place like home.” Jesus offers to take us to His home.
John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
HOME, SWEET HOME
There was a time during the American Civil War, when the rival armies were encamped on the opposite banks of the Potomac River, the Union's band played one of its patriotic tunes, and the Confederate musicians quickly struck up a melody dear to any Southerner's heart. Then one of the bands started to play "Home, Sweet Home." The musical competition ceased, and the musicians from the other army joined in. Soon voices from both sides of the river could be heard singing, "There is no place like home." In a similar way, (all those with Christ as head), in spite of many divisions, is bound together by that one strong link--we are all going home, and to the same home. We have a common destiny.
[(Michael P. Green. (2000). 1500 illustrations for biblical preaching (68). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.) From a sermon by Matthew Kratz, Hope that Stands in the Storm]
ILL: Daniel Overdorf - One Friday afternoon I struggled to prepare for the weekend. The week’s hectic pace, filled with activities, left me scrambling on Friday to finish my sermon. While I hunched over my desk, unable to develop anything that resembled a sermon, the office phone rang. From the phone’s earpiece came the shaky voice of an elderly lady who lived in the nursing home, Mrs. Robinson. She wanted me to visit. I looked at my unfinished sermon, then at the clock, then back at the computer screen. I grimaced. “I’l be right over.” Mrs. Robinson served in the church for years. She had endured a difficult life. She had outlived all of her family. Though she resided in a nursing home full of people, she lived alone. “I’ll just make it a short visit, then I can get back to more important things.” I entered her room, sat in the recliner next to her bed, and asked Mrs. Robinson about her week. She raised her head briefly from her pillow and smiled. “Awfully kind of you to visit an old lady.” My shoulders and eyes dropped, “My week has been fine, thanks for asking,” she continued. “The beautician came by and gave me a new hair style. Do you like it?” “Very pretty,” I responded, though I could tell no difference from before. I glanced at my watch. We chatted briefly about the happenings at the nursing home, then Mrs. Robinson grew quiet. Her eyes focused somewhere beyond the room. “I’m tired, and I want to go home,” she said. Her head turned toward me, ”Is it okay to want to go home?” To Mrs. Robinson, home meant heaven- a home for which her tired body and spirit ached. Is it okay to yearn for our heavenly home?
Conclusion: In WWII when the Marines captured the island of Saipan, the Japanese ordered the inhabitants to kill themselves by jumping off a cliff. I was in Saipan in 1984, and I was at this very hill where the Japanese ordered their own people to jump off and kill themselves. Hundreds of feet below are the rocks and waters of the beach. It’s a very steep drop-off. American translators yelled through bullhorns that if those on the cliff would come to the U. S. side, they would be spared. They yelled three words over and over, "Come and live." And a few did. Most jumped.
Many respond in the same way to the Gospel today. You see, at the cross God yells through a bullhorn, "Come to Jesus and live. Come and I’ll never send you away."
(Source: from a sermon by Mike Cleveland, "Believing Means Coming to Jesus" 8/10/08)
Come and See
~
When was the day you received the invitation?
Come and see. Come and see.
When was the day you heard the Master’s voice?
When was the day you made Christ your choice?
When was the day you allowed the Savior in?
When was the day you were cleansed from sin?
That was the day He stopped your falling.
That was the day you heard Him calling,
Come and see. Come and see.
The world’s filled with those who are seeking.
The world needs someone who is pleading,
Come and see. Come and see.
Today will you go without hesitation?
Today will you give out the invitation,
Come and see. Come, and see?
~"Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" John 4:29 © March 2019 Loyd C Taylor, SR
