Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church,
located at 2709 Rock Springs Road in Kingsport, Tennessee,
would like to invite you to listen to a message of Sovereign Grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. For information and service times,
visit www.ksgc.church. And now, Gabe Stoniker. I have
something for us today that I pray will be a real help and a real
blessing and comfort. Our message will come from Matthew
11, Matthew chapter 11, verse 28. Our Lord said, come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. and I will give
you rest. Come unto me. That's what he
said. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The message from
our Lord right here is come to Christ. That's what he is saying. Come to Christ. Come unto me. All ye that labor and are heavy
laden, I'll give you rest. Have you ever heard someone say,
come to Christ? Have you ever heard someone say
that? You ever heard a man step up into a pulpit or heard somebody
witnessing say, come to Christ? Come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we're hearing that message
right now. That's the message today. This is our message right
now. This may be the first time you've
ever heard that. This may be the hundredth or thousandth time
that you've heard that. But that's the declaration that's
being made right now. Come to Christ. Come to Christ. Now, who is the declaration being
made to? Well, verse 28 says, it's made
to all ye that labor and are heavy laden. That's who he is
talking to. That's who the message and the
announcement is to all ye who labor and are heavy laden. And
he's not talking about in career. And he's not talking about in
responsibilities. He's not talking about in life
on this earth. He is talking about labored and
heavy laden over sin. Labored and heavy laden over
sin. He said, if you come to me in
that way, labored and heavy laden over sin, I will give you rest. Now God has an elect people. And if a soul on this earth is
not one of those elect before the foundation of the world people,
that soul will not come to Christ. That will be the evidence that
a person is not one of God's elect. That person will not come
to Christ. If you'd like to look at John
six with me, John chapter six, verse 44, our Lord Jesus Christ
said, no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me
draw him. And I will raise him up at the
last day. The father elected a people. to come to Christ. The ones that
he draws, they are the ones he elected. He draws every soul
that he chose to come to Christ. And the Father is only going
to draw the ones he chose to come to Christ. So if a soul
is not one of the elect, That soul will not come to Christ
and cannot come to Christ. Again, he said in verse 44, no
man can come to me except the Father draw. That's the only
way. But if a soul has been included
in the Father's election, if we are one of the elect, okay,
God has an elect people. And if we are one of them, we
most definitely will come to Christ. We will. There will not be an option in
the matter for us. We will hear the command of God's
word. It'll say to our hearts, come
to Christ. We will be sovereignly drawn
by that command. And we will, no ifs, ands, or
buts about it. We will come to Christ. We will. Look at verse 37 right here in
John 6. Our Lord said, all that the Father
giveth me, every soul the Father gave to me, he has an elect,
an elect people. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. If the father elected, that soul
is coming. If the father chose to save,
that soul is coming to Christ. The father didn't choose one
soul and then leave the case where that soul can reject him
or ignore him or that soul is coming. All that the father giveth
me shall come to me. So if God has given us ears to
hear this and a heart to want to come to Christ, if in your
heart you hear this and you say, I want to come to Christ, come
to Christ. That's the declaration this morning.
That is the command come to Christ. Now, there are three types of
people on this earth, and I just want to interject here that I
feel I have a very important message right here. I pray the
Lord will really give us ears to hear this. We need this. I need this. We all need it. There are three types of people
on this earth. There are three categories of
people. Every soul on this earth falls
into one of these three categories. The commandment of God is come
to Christ. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
All right, some people literally have no idea what that means. You hear come to Christ and they
think, what in the world does that even mean? What do you mean
come to Christ? All right, that's category one. then some people think they know
what it means. They hear come to Christ and
they envision coming to Christ. They envision coming to a man. They envision physically going
somewhere, point A to point B. A lot of times people will come
down front. You'll see people get up from
their pew and they'll go down to where the pulpit is, you know,
point A to point B, you know, coming, going somewhere. And I'll just go ahead and tell
you that's not what it means, not at all. You have some people
who have no idea what it means. You have some people who think
they know what it means. And then there's category three.
There are some people who actually know what it means. God has revealed to them what
it truly means. And I want to encourage all of
us, let's ask the Lord to reveal by his spirit to our hearts,
what does this mean? I'm going to do my best to make
it as clear and as plain as I possibly can. But the only way we're going
to learn this is if God's spirit will reveal it to us. So what
does it mean? What is coming to Christ? I'm going to give you the answer
and then I'm going to explain the answer. Okay. Coming to Christ
is coming to Christ. Coming to Christ is coming to
Christ. Coming to Christ. Our Lord said
back in Matthew chapter 11, come unto me. And I know what I just said sounds
like a obvious answer or a simple answer or a ridiculous answer,
but this is the depth of salvation. This is the depth, this is the
heart of the matter. Our Lord said, come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I pray the Lord will open my
eyes to this today and your eyes. I pray he will open someone's
eyes to this today. Come unto me, I will give you
rest. If you're labored, come to me.
I'll give you rest. The first thing that causes God's
people to be labored and heavy laden is the sin that they've
committed against God. God's people are labored and
heavy laden over what they have done. What they have done. Every soul on this earth is despicable
in the mind, in the thoughts. I'm being very honest right now,
very candid right now. Now we're gonna leave the body
out of this for a minute. I'm not gonna talk about the
body, I'm gonna talk about the mind. I'm just gonna focus on the thoughts
and the mind, where all sin originates. The scripture calls it the heart,
the depth, the soul, the being of a man or a woman. All of mankind
is despicable. in the heart. You know the scripture
says the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked and it's so. All of mankind is despicable
in the heart, in the mind, in the thoughts. You know I'm speaking
truth. You have done things in your
life that you feel such deep guilt over and so have I. Every soul on earth has a whole
lifetime full of sin, but there are certain things that every
person has done that will haunt them until the day they die. If you are a child of God, you
are labored and heavy laden over the guilt of what you've done. The sin you've committed before
God And again, I'm not talking about the body. I'm just talking
about the mind. You know, everybody focuses on the body. They think
if it doesn't make it out of their mind, if it doesn't make
it to the deeds of the body, it hasn't happened. That's not
so. God looks on the mind. God deals
with us based on the mind. He said in his word, out of the
heart are the issues of life. God looks on the heart. He looked
on all those Pharisees. He knew they were evil because
he was looking at their heart. We're not even making it to the
deeds of the body. We're just focusing on the mind,
the thoughts, the heart. If you are labored and heavy
laden over what happens in here, listen to this command, okay?
Come to Christ. Come to Christ. And here's what
that means. In the mind, in the heart, in
the same place where all of that sin originates, In your mind,
in your heart, you rest in the fact that Jesus Christ bore the
very sins of His elect people, even the secret sins, the sins
in the mind that people can't see. He bore them in His own
body on the tree. Oh, the guilt He bore, the sorrow
He bore. You rest in the fact that God,
the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit, made Jesus Christ to
be sin for his people who knew no sin, the one who knew and
committed no sin of his own. The only sin in him was my sin,
your sin. The sin of all of his people,
he took it from us. He took it from us. He made it
to be His very own before God. You rest in the fact that in
the blood of Jesus Christ, everything that you feel so guilty for having
done, You rest in the fact that in Christ, in Christ taking it
from you, in Christ bearing it for you, in Christ being judged
by it for you, in the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ,
all of it has been put away forever. In Christ, it's all put away
forever. That's what it is to come to
Christ. That's what it is to come to
Christ. It's to take your guilty burden that you feel because
of everything that you've done. It's to take it to Jesus Christ
and leave it there. It's to trust in the heart that
he's actually taking care of that for you. And you can rest. You can rest. The first thing that God's people
feel labored and heavy laden over is what they've done. Come
to Christ. All right, come to Christ. When
it comes to all of that vile, wicked sin that you have done
and I have done, we can trust in the blood sacrifice of Jesus
Christ to put it all away. Come to Christ. People think
so often, they think if I could just go back and do that differently,
if I could just go back and undo that, Here's a better one for
us. Come to Christ. If we could go
back and do it again. We do it about the same way and
it's because we're sinners and that's about all we can do is
sin. Come to Christ. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come to that fountain of blood. Come to where redemption is and
forgiveness is. Come to Jesus Christ. The first
thing that all of God's people are labored and heavy laden over
is what they've done. All right. The second thing.
that all of God's people are labored and heavy laden over
is what they haven't done. Over in Colossians chapter 3,
it says, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affections on things
above and not on things on the earth. You just completely dwell
and be taken with glory and heaven and things there. Don't even
give any thought to this world. That's impossible for the flesh.
Verse three, he said, you're dead and your life is hid with
Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall
appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore
your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness,
inordinate affection, inappropriate affection, evil concupiscence,
that's lust, evil lust, covetousness, which is idolatry. Again, I want to remind us we're
leaving the body out of this, okay? We're just focusing on
the mind. Just to do all of this in the mind is to do this before
God. And if we do this in body, we
suffer earthly consequences. If we commit fornication, there's
earthly consequences that come with that. You commit murder,
there's earthly consequences that come with that. But to do
these things in the mind brings spiritual, eternal consequences
with it. So verse five, he said, mortify
your members. That means kill all of that. Kill all of that. Verse five,
mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness,
which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God
cometh on the children of disobedience. This is why God's wrath comes
on people. It's because of what they are
and what they do. He said, in the which you also walked sometime
when you lived in them, but now you also put off all these. Anger, don't ever get angry ever
again. Wrath, malice, you know, wishing
ill on somebody. Blasphemy, filthy communication
out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing
you have put off the old man with his deeds. You don't do
that anymore. What he's saying is change your
ways. That'd be a good idea, that'd be a good thing to do,
change your ways. Look right here at verse 12 if you're in
Colossians 3 with me. He said, put on therefore as
the elect of God. God has an elect people. Put
on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of
mercy, a heart of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness,
long-suffering, that's patience. He's saying, be holy, don't be
sinful, be holy. Our Lord said, be ye holy as
I'm holy. Now let me ask you a question.
Has anybody ever done that? I know people like to put on
the air that they have. They like to pretend like they
have, and they like to tell people that they have. They go around
self-righteously, acting holier than thou, and I don't do those
things anymore. I'm not a sinner anymore. First
John 1 says, if a man says that he doesn't sin, he's calling
God a liar. That's a sin. So men like to pretend, but no
soul on earth has ever done that. No soul. All you got to do is
go into your mind and you know that's so. No one has ever achieved
the holiness of Jesus Christ. Not in body, mind, heart. I haven't. I would love to. I wish I could. But I'm not going
to be able to as long as I'm in sinful flesh. The Lord's going
to have to lay this body of death and sin down before that will
ever be a possibility for me. Look at 1 Thessalonians 4 if
you're turning. 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 1 says, Then we beseech you, brethren,
and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of
us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound
more and more. For you know what commandments
we gave you by the Lord Jesus, for this is the will of God,
even your sanctification, your holiness. that you should abstain
from fornication, that every one of you should know how to
possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of
concupiscence, even as the Gentiles, which know not God, that no man
go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter, because that the
Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you
and testified. For God hath not called us to
uncleanness, but to holiness. God has called us to holiness.
Now what do we have to do to achieve holiness? We have to
obey every word, every law, every commandment in this book. All of it. We cannot break one
word of it. We have to be what this book
tells us we have to be in mind, heart, body, everything. From the crown of our head to
the sole of our foot, inside and out, we have to be sinless. We have to be perfect according
to the words of this book. We have to put off the old sinful
man of the flesh and we have to put on the new holy man of
Christ. Now, if you are not one of God's
people, You may have yourself convinced that you've done that. You may have yourself convinced
that you've done that. But if God has opened your eyes
to the truth of the matter, if God has opened your eyes to your
sin, and he will, when God's Holy Spirit comes, the first
thing he does is convinces a soul of sin, sin, that's what will
happen. And if God has done that, then
you carry a very heavy labored burden over the fact that you
are not what this Bible says you ought to be. You're not. You read this and you say, that's
not me. You do not do what this Bible
says you ought to do. You do not live like this Bible
says you ought to live. And to that I say, come to Christ. Listen to me on this. Come to
Christ. Know and believe in your heart
that Christ is our holiness. This flesh is not my holiness.
Christ is my holiness. He is the holiness of his people. Not only did he achieve holiness,
he is holiness. Your holiness, my holiness, He
is the holiness of everything that we need to satisfy God. Everything that he did while
he lived on this earth was holy. He only obeyed this book. That's all that he did. Every
word, every law, every commandment, Christ was for his people. He did this to give this record
of living to his people. He came to be the substitute
of his people. And everything that he did was
what this book said his people had to do. Christ lived like
the book said we have to live. That's the whole reason he came.
He came to fulfill all the work that had to be done. Not half
of the work, all of the work. He took away from us everything
that we've done and he put in its place everything that we
haven't done. He removed the sin and he established
the righteousness. When it comes to every good thing
that we needed to be before God, Christ accomplished it for us.
Therefore, let's come to Christ. Don't come to the law. People
get so sad over their sin and they think that they need to
come to this book right here. They think they need to come
to this law. I'm going to get in this Bible that says I have
to do this and I have to quit doing that. Don't come to the
law, come to Christ. Do you see what this is saying?
Do you see this difference here? Come to Christ. Romans 10 says,
men and women are going about trying to establish their own
righteousness and they have not come to Christ who is the only
righteousness that there is. The only righteousness God will
accept come to Christ. We don't go to the law to satisfy
God. Only Christ has satisfied God. We go to Him. He obeyed the law
for us. We come to him and we trust and
rest in the fact that that's so. We come to him believing
in the heart. He put away all of our wrong
and established all of our right. Come to Christ. Forgiveness from
sin is in Christ. The fulfillment of the law is
in Christ. No man can come to Him except
the Father which sent Him draws that man or woman. So this is
our prayer. Lord, draw us to Christ. Pray that in your heart.
Lord, draw me to Christ and save my soul. May the Lord do that. May He make it so. Amen. You have been listening to a
message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign Grace
Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message, or to hear other messages of sovereign grace, you can call
or write to the number and address on your screen, or visit www.ksgc.church. Tune in at this same time next
week for another message of God's free and sovereign grace.