Irresistibly drawn to us

Good Evening, How is everyone doing? Good day out in Bath? Awesome.

I wonder what you would do if the queen or someone really important was coming around for lunch or tea. How would you feel if someone really important was coming to your home or your room. How might you dress, would you tidy it?

I’ve not met the queen. But Before I went to Uni I worked at Christ Church in an intern house and David Williams, some of you may know, was our vicar. He wanted to come round and see the house and see how it was and pop in for a cup of tea. Well as I hear about this I go to my room and I suddenly freak out that my whole entire floor is full of clothes, guitar stuff and goodness knows what else. I don’t what you would have done, but I did what every good emergency tidier would do. I picked it all up and hit it under my bedcovers and sat on the bed, so as David arrived I hid the mess of my life.

I think sometimes this is how I feel about coming to Jesus. I feel like I need to hide all the mess of my life before I come to him.

Intro

Well yesterday I spoke about the kingdom of God and Jesus being the King of the kingdom. Essentially the good news is that God is king. Jesus is the Messiah. And I left us with that question, Who or what is the king of your life?

Today I want to talk about what Jesus is like. What sort of King is he?

We got a glimmer of that didn’t we on Monday, in my first talk. Jesus met a leper and remember Jesus was moved with compassion and stretched out his hand towards the leper. Today I am going to build on that simply ask the question what is the heart of Jesus like?

The context of todays verse has Jesus Jesus saying if you want to know what God is like, look at me, look at Jesus. And then he says this in verse 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart.

Gentle and Lowly

I am gentle and lowly or humble in heart.

That is what Jesus is like. That is what God is like. And this is the only place in all four gospels where Jesus himself says what his heart is like.

What does this mean?

Well firstly Jesus is gentle. Dane Ortlund in his great book based on this verse says this.

‘Jesus is not trigger happy, Not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated. He is the most understanding person in the Universe. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger, but open arms.”

I could stop there and say there you go. If you think Jesus is out to get you, here we find something completely different.

Secondly Jesus is humble, or in some translations it says lowly. Often when I think of humble I think of someone who doesn’t brag about their abilities. As if Jesus is awesome and hes like “ I mean I’m ok.” But the word that is used to translate as humble goes beyond rejecting bragging. It’s living not like an elite and as someone who is lowly. Again Dane Ortlund says that this word would denote

“the socially unimpressive, those who are not the life of the party but rather cause the host to cringe when they show up”

They literally are able to dwell in the places where the lowest of the low dwell.

I used to spend a lot of time In Uganda and for a few months I lived on the outskirts of a slum in Kampala, the capital. I lived with the vicar and in Uganda it is important to know that vicars are really respected in Ugandan culture. And one day I was out with the vicar in the slum and going around the houses, particularly after a heavy rain. And as we are going around there is the wet sticky mud filled with rubbish. waste storm water, and sometimes raw sewage. But every house that the vicar went into he got on his knees to listen and to pray. He would pick up soiled children in his arms and embrace people and give them his time. He was at home being down on the ground with the people. This is what this means when we say Jesus was lowly in heart. He is accessible. He is not put off by those whose life is in chaos because he is lowly in heart himself. God’s heart is lowly.

What sort of king is Jesus, he is gentle, not trigger happy, he is lowly, he is at home amongst the brokenness of the world. This is what we know of the heart of Jesus. He is accessible.

You may have noticed that I love a bit of Greek and I’m learning it and I’m so aware that I am studying theology and it is great. The more of theology that I study the more I realise how complex faith is. But also the more I study theology the more I realise how simple faith is. You don’t have to study Greek to be able to access the Bible.

For me it’s like staring at something beautiful and you are taken in by the beauty of the thing. Say a beautiful sunset, its simple to look at it. The more time you spend looking at it, the more you notice more and more things and the experience is even more rich. For me that is what studying the Bible is, its what coming to Download is about. But Jesus is accessible to all.

Come

But notice what Jesus says in this passage. In verse 28 he says this he says come. The king says come to all of us. What are the qualifications for being able to come to Jesus. It says this. Come all who are weary and burdened. What is the qualification to the kingdom, feeling weary and burdened. So often I think we think it says come all who have their lives sorted. But Jesus doesn’t say this, he says come all who are weary and burdened. Have you ever felt weary and burdened? Do you feel that right now?

I have just moved house and for some reason I convinced Clair my wife to move everything ourselves down three floors from out old flat to our new house and it was tiring. I remember collapsing into a bath on Sunday night before this week away utterly exhausted, with nothing to give and I was reminded that about Jesus’ words. Come all who are weary and burdened, I will give you rest. Jesus invites us to come to him, even if we are weary and burdened with nothing to give. Even if you are empty handed come and I will give you rest.

When Jesus says take my yoke, he is referring to the yoke that would be placed on the Oxen to plough the fields. Jesus is saying his yoke is easy. And in those it was also used to refer to the yoke of the Pharisees. Who came up with law after law to try and help people get to God. The beauty of this message is the yoke of Jesus doesn’t require you to keep law after law, but rather it requires you simply to come.

I want to just stop here and share some of my own story. Because this message here is why I am a vicar. I grew up in a Christian family and did Christian things, maybe like a lot of you. I didn’t think I had anything to give, not just God but life in general. I was very shy because I felt why would anyone want to know me. I heard this message that Jesus invites us to come. I decided when I was 14 at an event called Soul Survivor to give my life to Jesus. Why, because I was told that God knows my name, he knows me and he loves me. I thought that was amazing. As I kept going to church I saw leaders on a stage. Vicars, worship leaders and others and thought gosh they are holy. They have their life together. They must know God so well. I bet they don’t even have a bed. When they go to sleep a cloud appears and Jesus comes, kisses their forehead, tucks them in and says good night my good and faithful servant. I thought I am empty handed, my life isn’t together, I am not sorted.

So my faith was for ages was this belief that I wasn’t good enough to be in God’s inner circle, but that if I did good things and not too many bad things then I would be ok. Well I asked to help out at the kids groups which I know a few of you do here and I thought about it and said why not? And gradually I got more and more involved to the point where I was leading worship and doing things at the front. I realized I was on the stage. My life wasn’t sorted. There was no cloudy bed and I felt like an imposter. But what I have come to know is that all leaders and vicars don’t have their lives sorted.

I do stuff all the time as a leader where I let God down. Where I turn away sometimes deliberately and sometimes because I am busy. I am training to be a vicar and even now I still struggle to read my Bible and do the Christian things. But I have come to know that Jesus says to me everyday, come all who are weary and burdened. Come all who feel empty handed. You see the thing about being a Christian is its not about what you can do, but its just about showing up.

My passion in ife is for those who feel they are disqualified from knowing God. maybe you feel like me with the mess in my bedroom, you think I’ve got to sort this stuff out before I can before God properly or am worthy to come to God. That is a lie.

Maybe you’ve come to Jesus before and you just keep going back away and you think I can’t keep doing this. For me growing up I felt so ashamed looking at Jesus because I was so aware of my guilt. I couldn’t look him in the face. Jesus says come, all who are weary and burdened. One write says this

And if the actions of Jesus are reflective of who he most deeply is, we cannot avoid the conclusion that It is the very falleness which he came to undo that is most irresistibly attractive to him.

As I was praying for this week away I had a picture a really clear picture of what God wanted to say to you all, as individuals and as a group. It’s the word kintsugi. Kintsugi is a Japanese art form. It takes beautiful broken pots and mends them with Gold. Creating something beautiful from brokeness. That is the heart of God. He loves restoring beauty. I said yesterday we were made in the image of God. And through the fall and rebellion of humans we are broken, all of us. We keep getting broken. But God wants to journey with us, to restore us and to create beauty from brokenness.

That is my story. The older I get its as if the more broken I realise I am. Yet as I journey with God and try to come as I am, he is restoring me. A few years ago I went through some deep stuff that left me facing depression. Through the love of God and counselling Jesus walks with me, just like that Ugandan vicar. Every step of the way. This is the heart of God.

I just want to quickly draw on a story from another part of the gospels where Jesus talks about a tax collector and a Pharisee.

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” [1]

I don’t want to go to into it, but can you see it isn’t what we do that saves us. If you are trying to be the Pharisee and trying to come to Jesus only when you have got it all sorted, you are missing the beauty of the heart of God. I think it’s a really useful parable to help us where work out where we are at.

i feel there are a few different people it would be great to pray for,

The first is if you are here and you feel like that tax collector, you feel like broken pottery. If you think you can’t come to God. Jesus is saying, come. Just as you are, weary and burdened.

There are others here who maybe you’ve been a Christian many years and you have kept coming to church or week aways and you feel like you’ve turned away one too many times. Jesus says come.

The third group is maybe you associate with the Pharisee, You think I have been trying to earn my way to God. Jesus wants to give you rest from duty and wants to invite you into his love. For his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

I just want to say something about response because some of you might be there and you don’t know how to come, or what it looks like. We all have to start somewhere. There isn’t a proper way of doing it. Thats where praying with a leader and talking with them is why we are here. We love praying for you and we want to help journey with you as we journey ourselves.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Lk 18:9–14.