An Invitation of Hope

The Hope Filled Invitation

Introduction-/Transition

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Good morning. I’m glad you’re here. I’m also excited you’re with us today because we are beginning on a journey through the next 6 weeks in a series called “ANSWERS FOR THE STORMS OF LIFE”

We’re going to look at ways to face the storms that come into our lives using helpful and useful solutions to navigate through them.

And by the end of the series, these are the goals I won’t us to accomplish:

1. To learn what the Bible has to say concerning life’s trials and times of crisis.

2. To Learn how to view our challenges from a new perspective, taking a different approach, which can lead to different outcomes.

3. Last, to use Biblical truth to equip us with successful ways to pass through these storms.

Now, for today, I want us to focus on and remember 1 phrase, “Don’t do, just come.”

Let’s open in prayer

Identifying Common Ground - The Tension

If we have spent even a month living here on earth, you know It’s not if but when the storms of life come. We all know we’re going to face them.

And these trials are equal opportunity storms when it comes to whom they attack.

From young kids to those in their sunset years. Rich and poor. Men and women. Those who have faith in God to those who have yet come to faith.

And speaking about those who believe: If a Christian comes to you and says that ever since they came to belief in God, life is easy and they never face challenges. Personally, I have not found this to be the case.

Let’s now look at the most common areas in life where we might face challenges. The areas that produce the painful emotions we experience:

1. In our marriage or singles wanting to be married but aren’t

2. In our relationships with family, friends, and co-workers

3. Raising our children

4. Financial crisis

5. Our self-image, how we view ourselves

6. The Uncertainty in the world today

7. Mental and physical health issues

8. Guilt, shame, and remorse due to our own sin

9. Past or present abuse; including physical, mental, sexual, or substance abuse

10. And the death of loved ones

Myself, I have experienced crisis in every one of these.

I bet you have experienced most if not all of these as well

The emotions we feel

Now with these challenges come negative, even debilitating emotions. We experience:

Fear

Anxiety

Worry

Anger

Guilt

Hopelessness

And pain

THE LIST COULD GO ON AND ON

The Nature of the Storms

Now these storms hit us with different levels of intensity depending on the person and the circumstance.

Some are like dark clouds with wind and rain which can be more or less minor.

But some are like a category 4 hurricane with a tornado right behind it. It feels absolutely devastating.

The feelings and emotions we have also vary from person to person and differ according to the circumstance.

As the crisis comes we all have our own strategies to free us from the storm.

But every storm, every challenging situation we face have 3 things in common:

(1) The storm comes.

(2) An emotion or a wave of emotions are felt.

(3) And then our response to them.

Now we can’t control our circumstances. And the emotions that we feel are natural.

But we do have control over our response.

And because of this, I believe that it is our response that will make or break us.

How we respond can be the difference between drowning in the storm or successfully sailing through to the other side.

Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that there is a magic response or solution we can use facing a crisis that will take away all our painful emotions. A way we can go through them as if nothing is even wrong?

Of course not, it don’t exist.

However, the good news is that there are ways to face times of crisis that can keep us above water.

Ways in which there is hope and peace through the storm.

Ways to receive the strength and endurance to get us through.

Our response to trials

So when these painful circumstances come, our natural response is either to fix them ourselves or to escape from these feelings altogether.

These are things I’ve tried and they may sound familiar to you.

How about this...“If I just keep busy or work harder, I may be able to ignore these feelings.”

Or...“If I just stay positive, I won’t feel these painful emotions.”

“If I pull up my boot straps, grin and bear it, I can bulldoze my way through it.”

Here’s a good one...“If I act like nothings wrong, put on a good face, maybe I can ride through this problem.”

“I know, I can numb myself by over medicating. Maybe have a few drinks each night. Then I can make it through each day.”

“I can go on vacation for a while until this blows over.”

Outcomes of these self-reliant solutions

Well the problem with using these strategies is that they are based on human-effort.

Yes, we may be able to hang on and tread water for a while, but most of the time it just delays the inevitable.

Eventually we will drown because the load is too heavy to carry alone.

So the question then becomes, if human effort doesn’t work, who or what can we turn to for help?

And does the Bible address how to successfully get through the storms of life?

Well, thankfully it does.

The answer is in our phrase, “Don’t do, just come”

Exegesis

1. Before we look at our text for today, let’s travel back over 2000 years ago for some helpful information:

Before Jesus came, the Jewish people wanted to be worthy of a strong relationship with God. To earn His protection and salvation.

But to do this required being chained to the law. It required human effort to earn this relationship by obeying the 10 commandments and all the other laws the Jewish leaders put on them.

The problem was that the law was a heavy burden they had to carry.

So heavy it was impossible for them to accomplish.

No amount of human effort could earn their relationship with God and receive His salvation.

But now, Jesus has ushered in a new way to receive all that God offers us.

It is through His life, death, and resurrection that takes away the heavy burden of human effort.

Instead He offers the free gift of grace and mercy when we come to belief and faith in God.

And because of this new way, Jesus extends and offers an invitation to us.

A HOPE FILLED INVITATION”

Matthew 11:28–30 (ESV)

In this invitation, Jesus says:

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

These 2 versus contain a wealth of information and promises when we accept this life changing invitation.

So let’s take a deeper dive into Jesus’ offer.

We’re going to answer 2 questions, “What is it we need to know? And why do we need to know this?

First and foremost, as you read the text, you immediately see that Jesus is acknowledging the fact that we will all face the storms of crisis in our lives.

Jesus gives us the key to this invitation when He says, “Come to Me”

This is the foundation for the rest of the text.

We are invited to come to the person of Jesus Christ Himself.

Not come to church, come to your pastor, not come to a Christian book store searching for answers.

When He says, “Come to Me” He is saying,

“I love you.”

“I know what you are going through and how difficult it is”

“But you do not have to face this alone, I will walk through this with you.”

So who is He inviting to “Come”

The obvious answer is “All”. This is pretty simple to understand.

But it is amazing how many people don’t come because they don’t feel worthy.

But notice Jesus does not say:

All the good people come.

All the religious people come.

Come all who have cleaned up their act and have their life in order.

Come, but only those who believe.

And, If you are successful in the world’s eyes, you can come.

Jesus does not want us to believe these lies. Instead He says “Don’t do, Just Come.”

And because all means all, anyone who comes to Him will not be turned away.

As we read on, the who now becomes more specific.

All who labor and are heavy laden - Other translations say heavy burdened

It’s for those who are trying to carry the heavy load of life’s ups and downs alone through human effort.

Those who are exhausted as they are hanging on by a thread just to make it through each day.

It’s for those who know their spiritual emptiness and need.

And for everyone who feels like they are not worthy of God’s love and forgiveness that leads to salvation because of their sin.

Well now, Jesus then give us a promise. He will give us rest

The promise is actually 2 kinds of rest.

The 1st is rest in our present lives and circumstances.

And it is a spiritual rest, not a worldly rest.

Now again, I’m not going to sugarcoat this.

Jesus is not saying He will miraculously take our crisis away along with it’s painful emotions with His rest

In fact, Jesus has a bigger purpose for coming to Him to face our challenges.

But you’ll have to wait for those purposes coming in the next 5 weeks.

His rest is the love and faithfulness that He pours into us.

It means to rest and rely on His strength and endurance which empowers us to overcome our emotions so they don’t crush us or drive us to despair.

The invitation now continues as Jesus offers to TAKE HIS YOKE

This is an agricultural term.

The yoke was a wooden tool to tie 2 ox together so they share the heavy load they are pulling.

Now when I think of this, I picture each ox carrying 50% of the load rather than 1 carrying 100%.

But the reality is that all ox differ in strength.

So I want us to envision 1 ox pulling 80% of the load and the other 20%. It still equals 100%.

The stronger ox is stepping in to walk with the other to pull the load that otherwise would be impossible.

And so it is with Jesus when we take His yoke. To “not do, just come to Him.”

And when we come to Him, He tells us to Learn from Him.

This doesn’t mean having a cognitive understanding of Jesus.

To learn from Him is to come and follow Him in full submission and obedience.

To come with faith and trust in all that He has accomplished through His life, death, and resurrection.

And to let go of self-reliance and become God-reliant.

We now come to Jesus’ true character, “For I am gentle and humble in heart”

Now what does this look like?

Well, Jesus is giving us a Biblical truth about Himself.

He proclaims, “I humbled Myself by giving up My glory in Heaven to become man.”

“To be a servant to all even to the point of death.”

“This is how much I love you and want to walk with you.”

And this brings us to the 2nd rest.

I can just hear these powerful words of Jesus saying, “I have done all of this so you may have eternal rest. Rest from knowing I have made you my own and secured your salvation.”

“You do not have to earn My love and salvation. This is My free gift of grace to you.”

“I am inviting you to stop doing it yourself and just come to Me.”

“Because My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Application

So now that we have learned what we need to know and why, Let’s look at what we should do and why we should we do it?

Well, we’ve been focusing on coming to Jesus in times of crisis. But there is a bigger picture to this invitation.

Christ wants us to come to Him in all circumstances.

To turn our unbelief into genuine faith in Him and all He has accomplished.

We then receive God’s grace and the forgiveness of sin that leads to eternal life.

And the good news is that God meets us where we are and then molds us into what He wants us to become.

Even those who are skeptical, those who maybe coming to church to see what this Jesus thing’s all about.

You see, God will work with even the most microscopic willingness and open mindedness.

So how should we can come to Jesus

1st, we come to Jesus in trust and faith in the promise that He will walk with us each day.

We come to Him through Prayer.

Because a prayerful life is a relational life as we become united with Christ.

Our mindset also matters when we come. Let’s not allow pride and self-reliance to take root in us.

Instead let’s have the mindset of being God-dependent and God-reliant as our root.

This helps build a solid foundation for our life.

Personally, I like to start my day by coming to Him in prayer as I seek Him.

This helps me establish a mindset that focuses on Jesus rather than myself.

When we do this, it helps us start each day embracing God’s grace and love with a thankful heart.

Conclusion

Well coming to Jesus is a continual ongoing process.

In my experience, it’s never a one and done deal.

In fact, I have had some rough days where I had to refocus and come to Him on multiple occasions.

It’s like a tennis match: Hopelessness /hope, Fear/faith, do it myself/come to Him.

So let’s never cease to say “Yes” to His invitation.

Let’s continually say yes to receive His rest, peace, hope, and joy in the fullest as we obediently serve Him and fulfill His will for our lives.

And the most important foundation we have as we come to Him is knowing with full assurance that God has secured our eternal life through Jesus.

Poem Called “Footprints in the Sand”

One night I dreamed a dream. I was walking along the beach with my Lord. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to me and one to my Lord.

When the last scene of my life shot before me I looked back at the footprints in the sand. There was only one set of footprints. I realized that this was at the lowest and saddest times of my life. This always bothered me and I questioned the Lord about my dilemma.

"Lord, You told me when I decided to follow You, You would walk and talk with me all the way. But I'm aware that during the most troublesome times of my life there is only one set of footprints. I just don't understand why, when I need You most, You leave me."

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."

As we turn to our last long and before you go home to start your week, I want to make this personal. I want to pierce your heart and mind by encouraging you to take time to reflect on one question.

“How would your life change, what would your life look like if you said yes to Christ’s invitation?

This is life changing so I’m going to ask again:

“How would your life change, what would your life look like if you said yes to Christ’s invitation: Don’t do, Just Come?”

Prayer