Scripture: Matthew 11: 25-30
Sermon: “Come unto Me”
At home, we have this little plastic item in the shape of a loaf of bread. In the top of this little plastic loaf, there is a rectangular slot holding little slips of colored tag board. On each slip, two Bible verses are printed; one on each side. The intent of this little loaf of Bible verses is to take one of the slips with you every day and try to memorize at least one of the verses. It really is a good way to learn new Bible verses and sometimes it’s very comforting to read the verse in the middle of a busy workday.
I had been trying to do this little exercise and I really was memorizing some of them. But as I started to get to my third or fourth slip, I began to think that I should be able to write a sermon on any one of the verses I picked. It just so happened that day I was trying to memorize Matthew 11, verse 28.
“Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
I thought to myself, that I would try to “unpack” this verse and see where and how far it would take me. At that time, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself in for. Beloved…there is more in this verse that I can express to you here today…there is more in this verse than I ever imagined. I believe that there are several sermons just waiting to pop out of this simple sentence.
At the time I decided to try to understand this verse more fully, I was attending the Lay Speakers Session at Camp Horizon. During one of the days, we were afforded about 3 hours of break time and so I pulled out all my books that I had brought with me and began to take this verse apart…
“Come unto me…”
The first part of this verse is an invitation that is very special. I don’t know if you have ever thought about how amazing this statement is, but…it’s special because it speaks to everyone…it speaks to anyone…anyone in this earthly world who wants to hear. It invites people of any color, any belief, any person in any situation.
It speaks to those addicted to drugs, it speaks to those addicted to alcohol, to those addicted to pornography, to gambling, to those addicted to their careers…it even speaks to those who come to church every Sunday.
Mark Twain said, “We all are like the moon. We have a dark side that we don’t want anyone to see.” And if this is the case, all the more reason we need to hear these special words, “Come unto Me”.
You see, the Lord’s creation includes everyone! The Lord’s plan is for his Kingdom to come and His Will to be done “on earth…as it is in Heaven.”
This word “Come” means so much. In the Hebrew language, the word is “Bo” and it used in so many ways.
When the word ‘come’ is used as a verb, it signifies an act…a physical or spiritual movement from one place to another. It states that something or someone is moving from point A to point B.
When Jesus invites us to “Come”, he is asking us to accept our own Salvation. He is asking us to move from point A, which is an unbelieving and sinful life to point B, a life of abundant living through Him. This Salvation brings us into the family of God…it brands us as a ‘child of God’s’…we become heirs of all of God’s promises.
But just being Saved isn’t all there is to it. After that initial, unrepeatable act of accepting the Lord, you begin to find that there is more…oh, so much more. You begin to realize the three dimensional aspect of your Salvation…the amazing Justification, Sanctification and Glorification of your Salvation.
These three elements that make up Salvation, each one of them can be a sermon in themselves, but today for our purposes…let’s take a quick look at what your Salvation has to do with the invitation…”Come unto Me”
Justification…
We, as Christians, are justified from sin by our faith that Jesus Christ is God’s Son. Our faith that Jesus died in our place, while we were yet sinners, proves to God that we believe in all that God and Jesus profess.
We also find that someone cares…cares enough to die for us…finding out that someone thinks we are worthy enough to be saved.
American radio broadcaster Paul Harvey once told a modern parable about a religious skeptic who worked as a farmer. One raw winter night the man heard an irregular thumping sound against the kitchen storm door. He went to a window and watched as tiny, shivering sparrows, attracted to the evident warmth inside, beat in vain against the glass.
Touched, the farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn door for the struggling birds. He turned on the lights and tossed some hay in a corner. But the sparrows, which had scattered in all directions when he emerged from the house, hid in the darkness, afraid.
The man tried various tactics to get them into the barn. He laid down a trail of Saltine cracker crumbs to direct them. He tried circling behind the birds to drive them toward the barn. Nothing worked. He, a huge, alien creature, had terrified them; the birds couldn’t comprehend that he actually desired to help.
The farmer withdrew to his house and watched the doomed sparrows through a window. As he stared, a thought hit him like lightning from a clear blue sky: If only I could become a bird--one of them--just for a moment. Then I wouldn’t frighten them so. I could show them the way to warmth and safety.
At the same moment, another thought dawned on him. He had grasped the very reason Jesus was born.
Through our justification, we realize that God does love us and that he wants us to have a relationship with Him…a relationship that becomes eternal with our acceptance of Him and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 11: 6 says that, “without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is…” Through our faith we are Justified as worthy to be saved.
It was asked of a seminar professor, if Jesus was aware of His identity on the night of His birth?
“Yes.”, the teacher said, “Jesus knew”.
“Who else knew?”, they asked.
He replied, “Mary knew, Joseph knew. Mary’s cousin Elizabeth knew. Elizabeth’s husband knew.”
Then it was asked, “Why didn’t more people know and why do so many people not know, today?”
He answered, “Knowing is not a matter of fact. It is a matter of faith and faith is given to anyone who seeks it.”
What’s amazing is that once we have that faith, we also have the facts made available to us…the facts that assure us of our eternal relationship with God and his Son, Jesus Christ.
Sanctification…
The second dimension of your Salvation is the on-going Sanctification. This aspect of Salvation is the process of being made holy. Holiness means that we are consecrated and set apart for the use of God.
In his book, Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges says that Holiness is simply a resolve, “never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.” That’s holiness in a nutshell, but there’s more…there’s much more to enjoy and discover.
As you begin to strengthen in your faith through justification, you begin to truly seek after God…you begin to pray more…you begin to study more. Through this prayer and study, your relationship with God becomes warmer and closer to your every day living. It begins to interrupt your old life and convict you of the ways in which you might have been living. It may show you that your use of foul language cannot continue…it may highlight the way you think about and act towards the opposite sex…it may convict you regarding the places you go and the kind of jokes you tell…in other words the way you lead your life.
This Sanctification might be kind of scary to some. It shouldn’t be…but to most Americans, today, the impression of becoming Holy usually means organ music, long prayers and religious-sounding chants. It hardly seems appropriate for those who deal daily with the real world.
Being Holy brings to mind things like…beards, sandals, long robes, stone cells, no sex, no jokes, hair shirts, frequent cold baths, fasting, hours of prayer, wild rocky deserts, getting up a 4 AM, clean fingernails, stained glass and self-humiliation.
Is that the picture you have in your mind of being a holy person? It shouldn’t be, because it couldn’t be further from the truth. Being Holy is just knowing what God thinks is right and then aligning our lives to match. Chuck Colson stated it best in his book “Loving God” when he says, “Holiness evidences itself in the decisions we make and things we do, hour by hour and day by day.”
This Sanctifying idea…it’s just our Christian journey…our travel from point A to point B…its our amazing realization of God’s creation, God’s plan and God’s purpose for each and every one of us. He loves you and He wants you to know Him and have a relationship with Him…He is our seeking God. Our Sanctification is our seeking Him in return. He is reaching out for you and all you have to do is extend yourself back to Him and meet him half way.
The scripture says, “I stand at the door and knock”.
Let Him in…Let Him in…Let Him help you to become holy and set apart…Let Him give you all that He wants to give you…
Life more abundantly…strong relationships…a merry heart…a compassionate soul…assurance for tomorrow.
A friend for life…a friend for eternity.
Come unto Him…
Glorification…
Through your Sanctification you begin to realize the Hope for your future Glorification through Jesus Christ. This Glorification is the “coming home” that Jesus promised each of us…He said, “I go to prepare a place for you in my Father’s Kingdom”.
And Hebrews 7 vs 24 gives us this hope…
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
And 1st Peter tells us: “Your reward will be a never-ending share in His Glory and Honor.
With scriptures like these, why shouldn’t our Hope be kindled…a hope for eternal life in God’s Kingdom.
Well now, we’ve talked about our Justification through Christ’s death, our Sanctification by the Holy Spirit through prayer and study of the Word and, finally, our Hope for our Glorification as we enter God’s Kingdom to live eternally with Him.
But where are we right now? Where have we “Come” in our journey?
Are you still waiting to realize your Justification…are you still waiting to ‘open the door’ and let Christ come into your life…are you still being ‘cautious’ about accepting the “Truth”?
Or are you at the point of perhaps believing in God and Jesus, but you think that that’s all there is to it? Maybe you believe, but it doesn’t seem to make that much difference in your life…maybe this ‘Christian’ thing is okay, as long as it doesn’t make any demands on the way you live your life. You’ll go to church and you’ll sing the songs and listen to the sermons, go to Sunday School, but then when you leave the church, that “serious stuff” stays at the church and the ‘real’ world takes over again. What ‘real stuff’ is there anyway in Christianity?
“The Real Stuff” of life…boy! This is where the ‘rubber meets the road’…this is where I live…the everyday world…the world of work and slave to make a living and pay the bills…the world of dealing with people…all kinds of people…the world of kids and messes and dirty clothes and dirty dishes. Yup…this is the “Real World’. What’s that ‘Christian Stuff’ got to do with the “Real World anyway”?
The answer...EVERYTHING!
Learning to live the Christian life is where we “Come” to our Sanctification. This journey of learning to take what the Word of God says to us and put it to work in our everyday lives…our hour-by-hour decision making…our minute-by-minute movement from point A to point B. It is our struggle to “Come’ closer to what Jesus was and what God wants us to be…His child…a “child of God”.
“Come unto Me”…that’s His invitation. Come…come…come. This word, “Come”, seems to speak to each one, individually…each one of us in such a quiet way.
Have you ever put a conch to your ear and just listened for the sound within its labyrinths…that faint and haunting echo buried deep inside that whispers the voice of an immense and mighty ocean. Are these tiny, secret little sounds like that of a “still small voice” found buried deep inside of each one of us. Do we ever quiet ourselves enough to hear the being of God that indwells within us…to hear his invitation, saying:
“Come unto Me.”
When you’ve heard this voice, don’t ignore it…when you feel His presence in your very deepest being…stop and listen. It your own very special invitation from God…your creator…the creator of the universe…He wants you to come…come and be a friend. What an exciting honor!!!
When I took this little scrap of paper and read the words, “Come unto Me those who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”, I had no idea how very special these words were….an invitation from my Savior and Creator. God invites His prodigal children…you and me…to come home again. He will run to meet you and hug you and put a royal robe on your shoulders and a ring on your finger and prepare a feast in the presence of your enemies.
You and I know we don’t deserve it…but God is waiting to do that for His children…the ones who will just, “Come unto Him”. Quiet down and listen and then once you’ve heard Him in your very deepest inner being…shout Halleluiah out loud…because you finally know He is with you…He is with you always!
You’ve received your invitation now, and as you think about it, you might notice down in the corner, at the bottom, it says,
RSVP….ASAP
Amen.
Scripture
Matthew 11: 25-30
25At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.
26Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
27"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
