September 10 Worship Service

We are we are beginning a sermon series this morning on Matthew chapter 11 verses 28 to 30 and this morning. I want to talk about that passage as a whole and kind of give us a peek of the series a little bit you are invited as what this morning sermon is title, but it listen to this verses in Matthew 11. They may be familiar to you, but I want us to really spend a lot of time dwelling on them thinking about them when I read these versus here. Realize these are the words of Christ. to you and I

understand that this is Jesus speaking to you and I it's not simply some sort of Doctrine or Dogma or some isolated sacred text. These are eyewitness account. There's a recording of Jesus words spoken to his disciples and to those who would leave as a result of his disciples to listen. See Jesus when you hear these words listen to what he says to each of us. He says then Jesus said come to me. all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light.

Those are exciting words, aren't they and I'm not sure just to be honest with you. I'm not sure we always let those words sink in. I'm not sure even as Christians and his followers of Christ for for many years. I'm not sure where all is living by those words. I'm not sure where all is receiving that blessing from Christ. I I think sometimes we managed to kind of load burdens back on her own shoulders that Christ doesn't intend for us to share. Sometimes we managed to go away from that wrist or let me work it this way can anyone relate to the idea of longing for rest? Would you like some rest? Did you know that feeling you get when you're leaning back in a chair? And you realized that moment when you realize you've leaned back just a little too far and the chair is going to tip. You know that feeling. Someone shared with me recently. I thought it was a great analogy that that's how life feels all the time for them. Can you relate to that that sense of anxiety that moment of you know, what? Well, I just I've got too much going on. I'm taking on too much. Can you relate to that? That feeling that life is moving at a speed that you're really just along for the ride. Maybe you're not really in control of it. It's gotten out of your hands and sometimes I think we kind of learned to live with that feeling. We kind of think that's the normal life. That we're supposed to always feel spread thin. Or crazy busy. We're out of control. We're always supposed supposed to feel kind of detached alone or isolated. Are those are not what Jesus offers us when he says come to me and I will give you rest for your souls. But even as believer sometimes I think we sleep in tough lifeson and Lifestyles that that give us that sense of how to control anxiety. What kind of accepted as normal?

I really think there's another invitation that if we're not careful we've accepted and it's the devil's invitation as opposed to Jesus invitation. The devil's invitation is for busyness and isolation and self-sufficiency. And can you see how that invitation is just weaved into our culture is matter fact, if you're not busy someone kind of says what what's wrong with you? How can you how can you have time for that? Why are you not are you not working hard enough. Are you not productive? Isn't that the badge of honor in our culture when someone says it on I can't make it my calendar app don't get with that week but put put can't with that. We get a few. I've got six things going on that week. If you don't hosting a party for my son's little league and we're going to have this big group of that. I pay that I'm part of this committee that I pay that I'm on that and by the way, I can't do this. I'm traveling that weekend. I'm out of town and we kind of where that that's a badge of honor. I'm just so busy. That imitation is kind of weird Intercultural. We really can't imagine what it's like not to be busy. Can you imagine what it's like not to be busy? I know we have isolated pockets where we go on vacation and it feels good to get up and think. I just get the drink a cup of coffee. Turn on the deck look outside, but we all know those vacations come to an end. Don't say that it does not last beyond that vacation as soon as we get back home. It's Monday morning and we think all I got to get up. I got to go. I got to get started. I got to get out of the house and we slip into that and that's the adversaries invitation and that busyness just contributes to this sense of isolation that we live in we we are folks who can live in a busy life who can be around people all day long and still be immensely lonely. We can even go to church we can even be there every time the doors are open and not genuinely have intimacy with someone else not genuinely have friendship or connection. We can stay busy. We can have lots of acquaintances. We can have lots of people who say hey it's good to see you at we talked to him for 30 seconds at Kroger and then we move on our way, but we can still fall prey to his invitation the adversaries invitation to live life that are isolated from Brothers and Sisters in Christ that are isolated from others and intertwined and all of that is also the call of our culture his invitation to self-sufficiency. I can do this myself. I told you guys a story before it always boggles my mind because it's so countercultural to North America that when I was in South Korea visiting churches there a company staff that they had 31 pastors that church was eighty-five thousand members 85,000 members. They had 31 clergy. On staff whose only job was to visit people everyday so that you got one visit a year from someone on staff who would come to your home and say how you're doing and we went along with this pastor has he visited this lady in her husband. He sat down when he visited her in the first thing you did was open up a notebook and look them up and he said I see here that you have not fulfilled your commitment to tithe to the church. I thought you don't know you don't ask that question. That's unacceptable. Can you imagine in North America? If if someone if I came in your home and said well, I looked at the records. Are you guys would whoop me push up your sleeves and say we're going to show you. Hey, this is America. We are independent. We are self-sufficient. We are isolated. Our business is our business. We're private not even God himself has the right to stick his nose into our life. That way it's part of our culture until we live this Independence this isolation this privacy by the way, in case you hate that story being left open ended like that. She said my husband has been in the hospital and out of work and we've been unable to fulfill our commitment and he said that they got a different notebook out and he said what do you need? And he made a list of everything they needed and they saw to it that the church provided for them during this time who is an amazing balance of both accountability and also compassion and care and loving but we have a hard time getting that to work in North American culture because we're so kind of self-sufficient. We do it our own way. God's invitation In this passage and all throughout scripture is different God's invitation is the heart of the Bible. So this isn't a particular pet theme of mine. This is the core of scripture from Genesis to Revelation that God is saying to us. I have an invitation for you from the very beginning when Adam and Eve sinned and they hide God comes in the garden and says, where are you? Aren't you guys come come over here to me? Show yourself. It's an invitation from the very beginning to the very end in Revelation when it celebrated that last all of God's people are gathered together in his City. I'll be there God they'll beat my people when we will be together and the invitation extends to all us another Core theme throughout scripture for Jesus got in trouble for again and again and again, but he was there to correct the Old Testament and Israel's misunderstanding that somehow God was only interested in a certain group of people based on their race or nationality or anything under the sun and Jesus came and turn that completely over to know if anyone. Here's my word and response. God will rescue him all throughout the gospels. He got in trouble you what are you doing with that Samaritan? What are you doing with that woman? What are you doing with this other person Jesus displayed that reality in scripture. The reality of God's heart that his invitation extends to absolutely everyone including the proud Pharisee that he confronted but none the less with challenging and calling them to turn to God to those who felt like all I can get from you Masters just Crumbs from the table a woman that was outside. Israel said to Jesus and he said such faith and blessed her. So the invitation extends to absolutely everyone regardless of their nationality regardless of the faith. They're pursuing now. You know, it's not an us-and-them thing. Again, our culture wants us to slip into those terms and thinking there was an Us and Them. The God is the creator of every human life and he's the father of every human life. And so even our prodigal brothers and sisters who reject his fatherhood. We are called to call them back to God to plead for them to know him. Paul talks about things and Chris's we are ambassadors for God. That's our miniature. We've been given the ministry of reconciliation. We're ambassadors forgot to say the other speed reconciled to God. Look at what Christ has done. Thirdly God's invitation is super natural. The rest Jesus is offering Us in this passage isn't like. Hey, you can come away to a wonderful beach house and you can feel the breeze come in and you can drink coffee you get in the hammock, you know and in it and have a milkshake and just enjoy yourself. It's not that sort of cuz those things in don't they? That was and he is a supernatural invitation to a deeper rest arrest that we struggle to no arrests that will take us out of that feeling of being in that chair that's pushed back to us a little too far arrested of trusting God. Going away from the sense of self-sufficiency in the sense that if it's going to be it's up to me, you know, the American Mantra that I even have to secure my own salvation. I've got to be good enough got to go to church good enough money got to be more on. I've got to somehow save myself all of that. Is that sense of leaning back on that chair and being in chaos, cuz you're trying to accomplish something. You cannot accomplish were dependent on God. the offers just that sort of Supernatural invitation God's invitation comes from Jesus. That's the heart of it. That's the radical nature of this passage. That's the radical nature of God's invitation that it comes from Jesus himself.

You know, I read a quote from CS Lewis.

That I loved and an author named Ellen Von supplied the quote in her own analogy, which I thought was great. I want to share it with you CS Lewis and his book the problem of pain Compares our relationship with God to the relationship that dogs have with us as Masters. Okay. So listen carefully to what he says, he says man interferes with the dog and makes it more lovable than it was in Mirror nature. He washes it house Transit now to the puppy the whole proceeding would seem if this puppy were Theologian to cast grave doubts on the goodness of man, but the full grown and full train dog admitted as it were by grace to a whole world of affections from its Master loyalties interest and Comforts entirely Beyond its own animal destiny destiny. That mature Dogwood have no such doubts about the goodness of man the goodness of its Master. He continues we may wish indeed that we were of so little account to God that he left us alone to follow our natural impulses that he would give over trying to train us into something so unlike our natural selves. But once again, we are asking not for more love but for Less

I miss Vaughn who is a dog lover says it's like a dark and stormy night when she goes outside her front porch and calls her dog in the dog may be out in the backyard. It may have its nose stuck in muddy water. It may have its paws dripping with mud and she calls the dog and she doesn't say to the dog Hey, listen, clean yourself up get all that mud off your paws get it out of your ears. Do a little shower, you know Q-tips everything get yourself nice and clean and then you're welcome in to the house. Now, you know why she doesn't say that to her dog. She says one I don't say it cuz my neighbors would think I'm already more crazy than they think I am. But secondly, she says I don't send that to my dog because my dog cannot do that.

My dog is not capable of cleaning itself up.

Part of the richness of the reality that this invitation comes from Christ is that it comes from the one who has provided for us. Who has provided for our righteousness who has provided for us being cleaned up so that we can indeed go before God any other system of things that somehow buying into the adversaries invitation to think my self sufficiency is what gets me into God's presence that I'm a good person that I do the right things and they're for God's getting a good deal or I turn my wife it's ludicrous because it is not possible. Paul says in Romans all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There's no one who can say I reach in my own personal moral life the Perfection of God Almighty himself. He doesn't matter that. We might compare ourselves to Isis or someone else on the face of the Earth insect. Well, I'm not half bad. Compared to the Perfection of God himself all of us fall short, there is no way we can clean ourselves up and then respond to God and then accept his invitation because we've done the work ourselves. And so it is necessary that the invitation from God comes from Jesus. The one who suffered who paid the price who willingly drink the cup in the garden that he said he wanted to not drink if it was all possible father that this of sin and grief and judgment put it passed for me, but nonetheless father Jesus said in the garden your will be done. Until like that that Master that system that all come in out of the rain and the dark in the mud coming to the house this well-lit and that's warm and who takes a towel and cleans that dog off wipes to paws off you ever do that? You're a stoop down to your door and take a pallet wipe the falls off of your dog before they came in Jesus offers this invitation and he provides what's needed for us to say. Yes.

Do you understand that?

The radical thought of you and I having communion with God almighty.

It's already provided for it. Simply. depends on us the all my dog has to do my dog doesn't have to clean herself up. It's not possible, but she just has to come when I say come. That's the thing that makes a difference between her being out in the dark and the mud and the dirt and the rain and the Thunder that scares her what she has to do when I say lazy.

Busy, not that weird dogs. But we're loved the way some of us love our pets. She has to hear that and she has to respond and come. It's interesting when you look at scripture. God dammit ation also comes to us continually with Grace. That we can keep pushing the the dog an allergy to because just because I called Daisy wants last week and she was stubbornly interested in whatever it was. She was digging her nose in and she didn't come when I called her. I didn't say well that's it. That's it. I'm locking everything you'll never set foot in this house again, and it's Jesus often says in Parables. Look if us human dad's and and pet owners assoc. Speak can be kind and gracious to others. How much more how much more is God's patience and Grace the night. Of course. I let around even though she may have said no one time and so has continually and it comes with Grace. Revelation 3:20 look, I stand at the door and knock if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and I will share a meal and we will share a meal together as friends. We often think of that verse as a verse. Jesus is speaking to those who do not know him but the comp the context and Revelation. Jesus is speaking to Christians in this verse. So you can be a Christian to him. Jesus needs to say hey.

I'm knocking at the door. I'm saying come to me. Those of you who are weary and burdened who who need your souls refreshed. Come to me. Come inside will Fellowship like friends will have this meal together. So this invitation is continual from God. I don't know about you, but do you know if we're honest don't we have to kind of keep saying yes to God. You didn't get saved 30 years ago or 10 years ago or five years ago and say well that settles it. Is your heart prone to wander as the hymn writer says? Prone to leave the god you love to you need to listen and hear these verses every day that Jesus says come to me those of you who are burdened. Come to me and I will give you rest and you need to say yes to this verse every day to this invitation every day. And Jesus said come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest. It's a supernatural rest. It's a rest it's deeper than just a week away. And then you come right back to all your anxieties to all the busyness to all the isolation. It's a deeper rest that he's inviting us to and that's what I want to talk about in these coming weeks what that rest is and how we learn to say. Yes to that invitation each day each morning each week how we come to him how we we bring our issues are struggles. Our problems are since our burdens to him on a regular basis so that we can know that Rift because I don't know about you but I suddenly wake up sometime someday some months. I'm yours and say you know what? I thought all these burdens back on my own shoulders. I'm not living that life that Jesus offers that supposed to be free and supposed to be refreshed. I'm not caring that go that he says his light and easy somewhere along the line. I dropped that joke and I picked up my own yo, and I've got this burden that I'm carrying through life. Am I doing good enough can anybody relate to that?

If if if if the Holy Spirit wakes you up you suddenly realize I'm not living the Christian Life or am I and I'm not saying that to make you feel guilty. I'm saying that Jesus is waiting. Every moment offering that invitation full of grace. I stand at the door and not come to me those of you who are burdened come to me. Are off somewhere along the line. I I swapped it out and I've got my own set of burdens and expectations and I'm busy and I'm isolated. Operating out of self-sufficiency instead of saying yes to this invitation. Come to me says the Jesus said come to me all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you let me teach you because I'm humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls. We're going to talk about what he wants to teach us in the coming weeks. What are those things? He wants us to know? That one power us to know that lightness of walk that light yoke that he offers that will allow us to walk through life differently than this culture than this world than the emissaries invitation tricks us into walking through life for my yoke is easy to bear and my burden and the burden I give you is light. Finally got the invitation in the worship team can come forward now God's invitation awaits your response. And then amazing as I said earlier that the radical concept of having communion with God Almighty being intimate with our creator.

That all that's been provided and the only thing that's needed now is for us to say yes. You don't have to clean yourself up. You have to solve all your own problems. You have to study the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and know every passage and every verse what you have to do is respond to Jesus invitation,

Come to me. Those of you who are burdened.

That's the invitation this morning. What is a bird in your bearing is sin? You've got sins you committed. You've got guilt in your heart. You got things you feel like boys people knew this. They would he want to sit next to me. Jesus says bring those sins to me. You cannot bear them yourself. They will crush you. They will isolate you from God. The only solution to our sins is to respond to his invitation to come and to bring them to him. Maybe it seems we've carried so long that we eat up with shame and we feel like I'm the exception to the rule. This is just who I am Jesus against his come to me. I'm telling you trust me. Trust me. Come to me. I have provided for your cleaning. I have provided for your righteousness. And binds us to know our identity in him to know his righteousness to know what Romans 8:1 says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Whatever your burden this morning whatever is on your heart. Come to Jesus as we sing this song. I'll be in the back of your folks both in the back and the front available for prayer come to any of us for Freer. You got a decision to make come to me for decision. I'd love to answer a question to talk to you about that. Use this time. Just to be refreshed and reminded of the truth of this song that we need God and guess what he knows that and he loves that and he wants to be available for us. He doesn't say I can't believe you need me. You were so needy. That Spirit. He's so thrilled when we come to acknowledge the truth that we need him and we come to him and we depend on him. That's his heart's desire. Uber says that Jesus bore the cross for the joy set before him it's that Joy of restoring us to him and to the father As we sing this song Come to Jesus.