My parents, Bob and Rebecca Coffey,
my grandparents, Henry and Doris, Mahan, all send their best and
told me to tell everyone hello from them. If you would open
your Bibles to the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. In Matthew 11, let's look at
the last three verses beginning with verse 28. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you, and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart,
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and
my burden is light. We're going to spend most of
our time this morning looking at the first three words of this
passage. Come unto Me. But we will take
a few minutes to briefly look at the rest of these three verses
to tell us a little more and a little bit about why it's so
important that we come to the Lord. In the first part of verse
28, "...Come unto Me, all ye that labor." Anybody here have
to go to work? Anybody here have to get up before
you want to in the morning? Get home after you want to in
the evening? Deal with people that you'd rather
not deal with? Have to sweat or be uncomfortable
at work? Have to be away from those you
love as you work so much? Come unto me all ye that are
heavy laden. Anybody here have a burden? Anybody
worried about anything? Worried about something at work?
Worried about something at home? Not sure how you're going to
pay that next bill that just came? Having problems with a
loved one? Anybody here concerned about
your kids for any reason? The things of this world, they
are work. and the burdens are heavy and
so often we get completely consumed by it. It says right here, come
unto me and I will give you rest. Our Lord will recover our strength. He will give us what we need
to carry on. And as great news as that is,
as great news as it is that all these things that trouble us,
that we do in this life, all of those things, He will give
us rest. It pales in comparison to the more important application
of this. Anybody here ever felt like the
work of salvation was out of your hands? That you couldn't
quite get it. That the burdens of your sin
was something you could no longer bear. No matter how hard you
try, you would come up woefully short. That men are constantly
putting salvation on your back or telling you that you can carry
it. The Lord of Glory will comfort you, give you rest, guide you
in the things of this world. But when it comes to the salvation
of His children, He did all the labor, all the work, and carried
the entire burden. The rest from that, that rest
is eternal. You gain strength that you never
had and had no way to get to. The picture given to us in the
next couple of verses here is to compare the yoke of the Lord
to the yoke that the Pharisees were putting on the people. What
the false religion is doing, that's our comparison today.
The Pharisees symbolized false religion in our day. Compare
the yoke of the Lord to any other idea that one might have about
how to obtain salvation. Take the yoke of the Lord. He
is meek and lowly in heart, it says, and your souls shall find
rest." Now this rest isn't sleeping, it's not inactivity, but the
rest is the harmonious working of everything in us, all our
faculties, all our affections. It's the rest of our will, the
rest of our heart, The rest of our thoughts, our conscious,
our imagination. Everything because each of these
things have found in God the ideal place for satisfaction,
comfort, and rest. This rest is where your entire
person, your desires, your wishes, your innermost thoughts, where
all of that, your dreams, your conscious, even your subconscious,
All of that works in harmony because in the Lord Jesus Christ
we have the perfect place for salvation. Then he says here,
my yoke is easy. Now that doesn't make any sense,
humanly speaking. Yoke, by definition, is combining
two animals by the head or neck. The reason his yoke is so easy
is because if you're attached to his yoke, he's doing all the
work. You're just along for the ride.
The Pharisees claimed that sinners had to work. They had to do things,
whether it was the way they lived, or whether it was through baptism,
or all these different ceremonies that they had. The Lord said,
neither is there salvation in any other form. for there is
none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved." The word easy here is also translated gracious.
And I love reading it with that term. My yoke is gracious. Only the Lord can make something
like a yoke, desired only for hard work, into something that
we would want. We need His gracious yoke around
our neck. And it says here, my burden is
light. How can a burden be light? When
we say the word burden, it implies that it is heavy. We travel through
this earth with a great burden of sin. We can't get rid of it. We can't hide it. We can't disguise
it. No matter how much we try and
how much we spend all of our lives going about doing everything
we can to make other people think that our sin doesn't exist or
we've conquered it or we've mastered it. But the Lord Jesus Christ
on Calvary, He took the sin burden away from all of His people.
He lifted the burden and He bore it Himself. And He replaced it
with a robe of righteousness. Now that's what the Lord says
He will give to those who come unto Me. So, how do we come to
the Lord? How do we approach the Lord Jesus
Christ? Turn with me to Matthew 15. How do we approach the Lord Jesus
Christ? It tells us in our text that
we must come unto Him. Now the first thing that's most
important before we go here is that when He says, come unto
me, it's difficult for someone to tell you to come unto you
without us realizing that the application is here, we can't
come. Throughout Scripture we see that the only way we can
come to our Lord is if He beckons us, He calls us, He draws us,
He makes us come. And that's an important application
that we need to know before we go here. Because I'm going to
read to you four separate stories in the New Testament, make a
few comments about each, to give four characteristics of how we
approach the Lord Jesus Christ, how we come to Him. The first
thing here is we have to know where we're coming from. When
we approach our Lord, we must know and we must act as if we
know where we're coming from. Matthew 15, look at verse 22. And behold, a woman of Canaan
came out of the same coasts and cried unto him, saying, Have
mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. My daughter is grievously
vexed with the devil. But he answered her, Not a word. And his disciples came and besought
him, saying, Send her away, for she cries after us. But he answered
and said, I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house
of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord,
help me. But he answered and said, It
is not meat to take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs.
And she said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which
fall from their master's table." This woman had no problem being
ignored. She didn't get upset at being
dismissed by all the disciples. And she was fine being called
a dog. Now, I don't know anyone else
in this room to tell you how you'd react in that situation.
But personally, if someone ignores me, I don't handle it very well. If someone tells me to go away
when I come to them, I handle that even worse. And if you call
me a dog, and you mean it in the implication that not you're
a dog but everything about you is a dog. I'm not tough enough
to fight you for it, but I'm going to say a lot of bad things
about you and you will regret it because it's all I'm going
to do. I'm going to hold a grudge. I'm going to do all that. This
woman here, her plea was to let this dead, dirty dog eat of the
crumbs that fall from the Lord's table. Her plan here was to worship
Him. He ignored her. So her response? Just continue to worship Him. She deserved that and that's
what she felt. This world has everything so backwards in so
many ways. One example is how so many people
in religion ask for things from the Lord and then worship Him
thinking that that's going to get them what they ask for. A
child of God worships God. Period. He is worthy of our praise. We worship Him, though we do
ask Him for many things. And we should ask Him for many
things. We should take everything to Him. The answers to our prayers
and to our questions, they have no bearing on our worthiness
or of our worshiping Him. If that were the case, we would
get absolutely nothing. We do not deserve or we're not
worthy of anything. When we come to the Lord, we
must know where we're coming from. Turn with me to Matthew
8. Matthew chapter 8. So we first must know where we're
coming from. The second thing is here that's
important when we approach the Lord. We must know who we're
coming to. Look at Matthew 8 verse 5. And when Jesus was entered into
Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,
and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy,
grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will
come and heal him. The centurion answered and said,
Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof.
But speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For
I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say
to this man, Go, and he goeth. And to another, Come, and he
cometh. And to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. Then Jesus
heard it. He marveled and said to them
that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great
faith, no, not in Israel. The centurion here knew who the
Lord was and he had at least some understanding of His power
and ability. All that he needed here was for
the Lord to speak the Word only. And he knew his servant would
be okay. Many people say there's no greater power than that of
the Lord. Let me change that phrase a little
bit. Let us say instead, there is
no power other than the Lord. He is in control of all things
and nothing happens or doesn't happen except through Him. We
use the word power and authority a lot, referring to people. Anyone
who claims to either have power or authority is either gravely
mistaken or they have been given it, blessed to temporarily have
it from above. Now this centurion also knew
where he was coming from. He said, I'm not worthy that
thou should come under my roof. That I'm not worthy is important. I believe that many, many people
in our world would be willing to say how great God is. Many people. And if you turn
on your television, you'll hear many preachers say that. Most
people don't struggle with saying how great God is. Many, many
fewer would be willing to say how weak and lowly they are. Many people believe that there
is a divide between God and man. But they think the divide is
because He is so high, not because we are so low. If I were trying
to give an illustration, and this is a poor way to do it,
but I think you'll understand. If we were to reach the difference,
the gap, the divide, and we were to go as far as we could, many
people would say that God was great. But they like to put themselves
somewhere. We're going to accept we're below
Him, but we like being in this region right here, though we
couldn't be further from Him. Everything is opposite with us.
We are as low as possible. He is as high as possible. The
man here, the centurion, said, I am not worthy. He knew who
he was and who he was coming to. Now turn over to Mark chapter
10. We must know where we're coming
from and who we are. We must know who he is and who
we're coming to. And thirdly, here in Mark 10,
We must know that we have no other option. We have no other
hope. Mark 10 verse 46. Mark 10 verse 46. And they came to Jericho, and
as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number
of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the
highway side begging. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou
son of David, have mercy on me. And many charged him that he
should hold his peace. But he cried the more a great
deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood
still and commanded him to be called. And they called the blind
man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment,
rose and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said
unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight." Blind Barnabas
was sitting on the side of the road begging, a blind man completely
dependent upon the compassion and generosity of others for
survival. If he was going to eat or drink,
he needed someone to bring it to him. He even needed someone
to tell him who was coming down the road. But when he heard who
was coming, nobody had to tell him what he needed to do. He
had nothing to do every day but dream and wish for someone to
heal him, someone to make him whole. And at some point he had
been told stories. He had been told things of this
Jesus of Nazareth. All the things that he had done,
all the miracles he performed, and the mercies and the grace
he bestowed upon all these people. And when he heard that was who
was coming down the road toward him, he belted out with a loud
voice, calling on the name of the Lord. He cried with a voice
that knew that the Lord could save him. He yelled as a man
that knew that this was his only hope. This was his only option. He was not going to stop as the
other people told him to be quiet. Everyone was there telling him,
would you just shut up? But that didn't matter to him.
If his hope was passing him by, he was not going to let that
happen. Now, I try to think how to express the way he was yelling. And every time I read this passage,
whether it's out loud or to myself, it's always a struggle because
It's difficult to imagine myself, I think too highly of myself,
to put myself in the situation that he's in. I can't imagine
being a blind man sitting on the side of the road begging
only to hear that the one person, the only person that gave me
any hope of being healed was walking down the road. Then it
hits me. That's exactly who I am. I'm a blind man. I'm a beggar.
I'm sitting on the side of the road with no hope. I can't do
anything. I've got no way to do anything
except when the Lord Jesus Christ, when His name is announced, when
He comes by, I need to yell and cry and plead His name. I need
Him. I need the Lord Jesus Christ.
We must know as we approach the Lord that that's our only hope. Now turn over to Luke 8. We must know who we are. We must
know who He is. We must know He's our only hope.
And in Luke 8 verse 43, we'll see that we must come with
confidence. Verse 43, ìAnd a woman having
an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living
upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind
him and touched the border of his garment, and immediately
her issue of blood stanched. And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they
that were with him said, Master, the multitude thronged thee,
impressed thee. And sayest thou, Who touched
me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me, for I perceive
that virtue is gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she
was not hid, she came trembling and falling down before Him.
She declared unto Him before all the people for what cause
she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately." This
woman definitely knew who she was. She felt so low and so poorly
about herself that she couldn't bring herself to actually speak
to the Lord. She felt unworthy to ask Him
to heal her. She was too ashamed of her condition,
of her state, to ask anything of Him or come before the Lord.
And she thought so highly of Him that her plan was simply
somehow to sneak up near Him and to touch the border of His
garment. She would not come before him,
but from behind. She would not be face to face,
but on the ground, reaching for the hem of his garment. She had
come to this place that he was her last chance. She knew he
was her only hope. She had spent all her living
upon physicians. She tried everything she could
and couldn't be healed and was told she couldn't be healed.
But He was her hope. And in Matthew's account, it
says that she said within herself, or thought about, if I may but
just touch His garment, I shall be whole. This woman knew a few
things about our Lord. She knew him that cometh to me,
I will in no wise cast out. She knew he had said, Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt behold." This woman
came to the Lord with complete confidence, much in the same
way that the centurion left the Lord with confidence. He had
nothing other than the word of the Lord that he had healed his
servant, yet he walked away happy. The only thing that we have to
draw confidence on is the word of our Lord. And let me tell
you, that's more than enough. Now, when I say come with confidence,
I don't mean that we come as if we deserve something. Or we
come in a mindset of He's going to take care of me because that's
what I get. That's what I deserve. We come with confidence because
of His ability. We have confidence in our Lord.
We have no confidence in ourselves. Now, these four people that we
just talked about are very different. We have men and we have women. We have someone who's a commander
and we have a beggar. We have someone who's come for
their family. We have someone who's come for a servant. We've
had someone who's come for themselves. One of these people was sick,
one of them was dying, and one of them was in perfectly good
health. Someone in this group had spent all that they had to
try to heal themselves. Another person didn't have anything
ever to spend. Some of these people asked the
Lord out loud. Some of them never said a word
to Him. There are countless differences
between these people that we have read about. So many more
than I've just listed. But all four of these people
have two things in common. The first thing that they had
is that the Lord drew them and they came to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the second thing is because He drew them to Him, He gave
each one of them rest." Now, back in our text, it said, I
will give you rest. Now, let me read. I intentionally
left off the last verse of all four of these stories, and now
I'm going to tell them to you. He gave each one of these people
rest. He told the Canaanite woman, after she came, a woman great
is thy faith. Be it unto thee, even as thou
wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. He
told the centurion, ìGo thy way, and as thou hast believed, so
be it done unto thee.î And his servant was healed the selfsame
hour. The Lord told the blind Bartimaeus,
ìGo thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.î And immediately
he received his sight and followed Jesus in the way. And this woman
in Luke 8 with an issue of blood, in verse 48 as weíre there right
now, And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort. Thy faith
hath made thee whole. Go in peace." He gave all four
of these people rest. Now, our situation is much worse
than an issue of blood or anything else that these four people have.
We have a sin problem and the punishment for sin is eternal.
The wages of sin is death. and the only hope is the Lord
Jesus Christ. We must come to Him knowing where
we come from. We must bring nothing and understand
we have no right to grace and we don't deserve it. We must
come to the living God. He is the only one who can make
us come. We must realize that we have
no hope apart from the one who is salvation. When Christ died
on the cross, when Christ lived perfectly, I lived with Him. When Christ died on the cross,
I died in Him. My hope is that when He rose,
ascended on high, that I rose with Him. I was in Him. And I must have confidence in
His ability, confidence in His work, and confidence in His grace.
And in closing, we must come unto the Lord. And as He said,
He will give us rest. We come to Him from nothing.
We come to Him bringing nothing. And coming to Him, we get absolutely
everything. That's all for things. Heavenly Father, will You make us to ask You to
bring us, to draw us unto Thee, Lord? Lord, we pray that You'd make
us to ask You to save our souls. Lord, it's so important that
You make us do these things. Make us to understand how impossible
it is for us to do them on our own. Lord, we give Thee thanks
and praise Your name. Lord, we want to worship You.
And though we ask for these things and we beg for them, Lord, make
us to worship You every day and every hour, regardless of what
we get. Lord, we worship Thee because Thou art
worthy. We worship Thee because You are
our only hope. Lord, we pray that You would
continue to teach us the truth. Lord, we pray that You would
do the same thing for our family, our friends, our loved one, and
especially our children, Lord. We understand how important it
is and how it's the only thing of any importance. Lord, we pray that Your hand
would be upon this place Your hand would be upon your church
that you would, in your time, see fit to call out many of your
children. Lord, we pray for a revival in our day. We're thankful that
you've given us this word and you continue to allow us to hear
and worship you. Lord, we also pray that you would
call out so many of your children. We're so blessed that you've
shown us these things and you've done this work in us that we
want nothing more than you to do the same thing for all our
loved ones. Lord, be with us this week. Lord,
as we leave this place, Keep us from doing what we so often
do, that our minds wander, our hearts go to the things of this
world, and we forget so often about the one thing necessary. Lord, keep us clean to Thee.
Keep us upon our mind and our heart upon Thee, and Lord, that's
where we'll find our rest. In Christ's name we pray these
things. Amen.