So, Matthew chapter 11 and verse
25. At that time Jesus answered and
said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and has
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto
me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father. Neither
knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever
the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labour
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. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Our gospel, when we preach it,
when we think about it, Our gospel must always go back to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Go back in the sense of it must
begin with him. Our gospel begins with Christ. It deals with Christ. It presents
Christ and explains Christ to the best of our ability. and it ends with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Our gospel and our preaching
must begin and end with the Lord Jesus Christ. And when the Lord
Jesus Christ told his disciples to go into the world preaching
the gospel, It was his gospel that they were to declare. It
was the message of him. It was the story of him. His
story is that gospel which we are to declare. That was what
Paul did. That was what the apostles did. And that is what the church,
being obedient to the word of God, has always done. and that is what we are called
to today. The gospel is his gospel because
it originates with him. It was conceived in the eternal
purpose of God and Christ was always that vehicle by which
the great eternal covenant promises of God would be accomplished.
This is Christ's work that is before us. and having originated
with him, having to do with him and being concerned with him, being given to the preachers
by him that he might be spoken of in the whole world, Mark quite
appropriately, as we've been thinking in our midweek studies,
calls this the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And we
see that all of these evangelists understand this role of Christ
in our ministry. Because Matthew, he begins his
book with the phrase, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ. Showing that while the Old Testament
begins with the creation of the world, the New Testament enlarges
upon the revelation of God in creation and providence by
introducing us to the Creator Himself. It is the Lord Jesus
Christ that is now to the fore. Not simply the types and the
pictures, not simply the ways in which God may be seen through
the natural things that are around about us, but God himself being
revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The creator is brought
to the fore. The New Testament begins with
Christ, who created all things, who is sovereignly ruling all
things, who powerfully upholds all things for his own glory,
and yet comes amongst men and speaks in that prophetic capacity,
the revelation of God, and shows men what God's will is. Shows God to men. Luke is similar in the way in
which he speaks. His purpose is, he says, to set
forth in order a declaration of those things which are most
surely believed amongst us. That is, believed amongst us
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. His gospel, his life, his works,
his revelation, his purpose, Christ himself. these things
being taught to us. And we can see in this that the
evangelists and the apostles always held Christ and the message
of Christ, the message Christ gave up as being the gospel. John says, in the beginning was
the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. A single
sentence, so simple that a child can understand the vocabulary,
yet so extraordinarily profound that the world's greatest philosophers
can only stand in awe at the majesty of John's words and never
by nature explain it. And let me say one more thing
about this gospel. So to prove, as it were, if I
can, how this Jesus, this Jesus of Nazareth, because remember,
that was a very common name, as indeed it is today in Middle
Eastern countries and increasingly with world travel in many countries.
The word Jesus, the name Jesus was a common name at that time. But it is this Jesus, this Jesus
of Nazareth, that is both Lord and Christ. And Hebrews chapter
1 and verse 1 and 2, the writer to the Hebrews says, God at sundry
times and in divers manners spake in time passed unto the Father
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son. whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, and by whom also he made the worlds." So the Gospel
is Christ. The Gospel has to do with Christ,
and when we preach the Gospel, it is Christ that we declare. This Jesus, born in Bethlehem,
raised in Nazareth, for the most of his life a carpenter, is nevertheless
the only begotten Son of God. And yet after the flesh, Matthew
says that he is the son of David and the son of Abraham, showing
that both his royal pedigree after the flesh and the fulfilment
of God's promises by grace are vested in this individual. All the promises that came to
Abraham come through Christ. All the promises made to David
come through Christ and the covenant is hereby established, God's
way of salvation in the person of Jesus Christ. So Peter could
say in that first sermon on the day of Pentecost, on that sermon
that gathered in all of those thousands of people under the
preaching of the gospel to faith in Christ and to that early church,
Peter could say, therefore let all the house of Israel know
assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have
crucified, both Lord and Christ. Lord and Christ. Now, I've taken
quite a long time here in this introductory portion to say something
very simple in a sense, but I've done so purposefully to make
this point. When we preach the gospel, or
witness to the gospel, or share the gospel with our friends,
with our workmates, with our friends at school, our friends
in the neighbourhood, our family, what we are doing is telling
people about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all it amounts to. This
is no psychological trick that we're performing. This isn't
trying to pressurise people to make a decision. This isn't trying
to get everything into the one sentence so that we can do justice
to the gospel, as if the gospel is some sort of proposition that
people have to be confronted with. so that they can make a
decision, so that they can choose Christ, so that they can get
everlasting life. That is such a travesty of understanding
and of meaning that so many preachers perform and are guilty of these
days, that it's almost an embarrassment to have to try and burst that
bubble and take people back to remind them that it is simply
the story of Jesus and telling of the things that he has said
and done. That's all it is. We are telling
people about the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's the point. It's all
we are asked to do. And therefore it is all we need
to do. The Lord Jesus Christ said to
the apostles, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel,
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the story of Christ. Just tell it as it happened.
Tell it as you saw it. Tell them what I said. Tell them
what you heard. Tell the people the things about
me. I say it's all we're asked to
do, and therefore all we need to do, but in a very real sense,
it's all we can do. We remarked about the fact that
the people of Tyre, the disciples at Tyre, took their wives and
their children with them where the gospel was being preached,
where worship was being made, into the presence of the apostle,
into the company of the preacher, but we can't save one another.
And nor should we endeavour to pressurise one another, as if
to say, well, do this, do this, it's something you need to do.
It's simply our responsibility to tell the story of Jesus. Tell about the message of the
Bible. Tell about the things we've seen and heard. Be simple.
Be honest. Be faithful. And that is what
honours the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not our work to make converts. That's the work of God himself. That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
God the Father has a people whom he has chosen. God the Son has
accomplished everything that is needful for their salvation.
And God the Holy Spirit takes the simple declaration of the
message of the Gospel, the things concerning Christ. And he, in
that moment, in that way, in that extraordinarily powerful
Work of grace applies it discriminately to whomsoever he will. Now this
verse that is before us, this Matthew 11, 28, is the verse
that I want to speak to you about for just a few minutes, and I'm
going to be quick today. And I just want to draw your
attention to that particular verse. We've mentioned it in
the past, but here it is again. Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now I'm not going
to get finished today, what I might have to say about this verse. So it is possible that we could
return to this a little more in a future occasion. But today
I want to just point out a couple of things. First thing I want
to say about it is this. This is one of my favourite verses.
One of my favourite verses in the Bible. And that might be
a surprise to some people because sometimes when we preach the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we get accused of things. We
get accused of, oh, not wanting to evangelise or not wanting
to speak to sinners about the gospel and about the Lord Jesus
Christ. That couldn't be further from the truth. And here is a
beautiful verse which is just thrilling for any believer to
read and to think about, to meditate upon and to speak about to others. Here is the Lord Jesus Christ
and he is saying, come unto me. This is a verse of invitation.
This is a verse of graciousness. This is a verse of open handedness,
of open armedness. All ye that labour and are heavy
laden deny will give you rest. It's a beautiful verse. And I
think perhaps it might be a favourite of some of you too. You know,
it's good to have favourite verses. Favourite verses are verses that
God the Holy Spirit has made dear to our hearts. Maybe because
of something beautiful that we've seen in that verse, something
delightful that has just warmed our hearts. Or maybe because
it speaks to us about something that we feel to be very important
and we've learned something by that verse and thereby it has
become dear to us. Or perhaps it has been a help
to us and an encouragement and a comfort during a particular
difficult experience in our life or in the life of our family.
And I'm sure that there are many of us who have found help in
the Scriptures at times when we have felt most helpless. and we have cherished that verse
for a long, long time, and we number it as a favourite verse,
and we use that verse to remind us to say thank you, Lord, for
the things that you've done. But there's space for a little
word of warning here, too, about favourite verses, because favourite
verses shouldn't overshadow other verses. There are not important
verses in Scripture and unimportant verses. All Scripture is important. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. All Scripture is useful for our
correction and our instruction in righteousness. All Scripture,
the whole counsel of God, is to be valued equally. And so
what we should really say is that this is a favourite amongst
favourites. And we shouldn't let one verse
or one passage overshadow another, or as it were, become a substitute
for learning more about the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me put that
another way. I want you to have two favourite
verses. I want you to have three favourite
verses. Four, five, six favourite verses.
I want you to have lots and lots of favourite verses because you
see something beautiful in them all. They all speak something
important that reminds us of the Lord's faithfulness to us
and should cause us to say, thank you, Lord. And even if it's not
immediately obvious what that is, we can learn more and more,
deepen our understanding. Because the whole Bible, as we
have said frequently, speaks about the Lord Jesus. The whole
counsel of God is not just one or two elementary lessons that
we pick up as children or young people, but it is a whole life
of learning about our Saviour. learning lessons that build on
lessons and developing our knowledge of the truth about Christ and
his work. And it's in that context that
I want to remind us that when the Lord Jesus Christ says, come
unto me, he is inviting us to learn about him. This isn't just
a evangelistic text. It is an evangelistic text but
it isn't to be restricted to that. It is an invitation from
the Lord to learn of him. It is like that verse which says,
behold I stand at the door and knock. He is speaking there to
believers and he is speaking about communion, he is speaking
about fellowship, he is speaking about supping together, one with
the other, learning of him. Like those two disciples on the
road to Emmaus who saw and understood so much more when the Lord broke
bread. and perhaps when they saw his
hands and the nail prints in his hands, there was an opening
of their eyes and an understanding dawned upon them. So the Lord
Jesus Christ graciously says to his people, come unto me,
come unto me and learn about me. Come and learn of me. Come to me to learn what I have
done, what I have accomplished. There's something important here
that I want us to grasp and realise because this invitation is personal. It's a personal invitation to
you and me to come and learn both of the Lord Jesus Christ,
but principally from the Lord Jesus Christ, because it is a
personal relationship with him in which the Lord Jesus Christ
himself personally comes and teaches and tutors and leads
us and shows us the way to walk. The Lord does not say to us,
Come and learn what I've done for your mum and dad. Or come
and learn what I've done for your brother and sister. Or come
and learn what I've done for people in your church. Come and
learn what I've done for somebody else. He says, come and discover
what I've done for you. There's a personal lesson of
a personal work When the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world,
he came for sinners personally. So Matthew chapter 1 and verse
21, we've mentioned it often, it'll be mentioned many more
times. Mary would bring forth a son,
and his name would be called Jesus, for he shall save his
people from their sins. A personal work. It was a personal
work that the Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross. He saved his
people from their sins. And when he performed his miracles,
he did them for personal individuals. He came for personal people and
he performed his miracles for personal individuals. How often
do we read in the Word of God in these gospel accounts about
a certain man or a certain woman? And it was certain individuals
who were the beneficiaries of the miracles of our Saviour. You might say to me, well, what
about the feeding of the 5,000? Well, what about it? Do you think
the Lord Jesus Christ didn't know the names of those 5,000
men and women and their children as well? I'm sure he did. He knows all things about all
men and women and he had called providentially that particular
5,000 people out into the wilderness that day that they might participate
in that great miracle of the feeding with the loaves and the
fishies. Of course it was personal. There's
nothing more personal than what we put in our tummies, what we
put in our mouth. And it was the Lord who broke
that bread and prayed over it for the sustenance and well-being
of those to whom it was distributed. And when he spoke, he spoke to
particular people. Listen to these verses. Matthew
chapter 20 verse 17, it says there, And Jesus going up to
Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way. He took them
apart, he took them separate, and he said unto them, Behold,
we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man shall be betrayed
unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn
him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock.
and to scourge and to crucify and the third day he shall rise
again. There's been a lot of warnings
about going up to Jerusalem and what would happen there. We've
read that already today. But here the Lord Jesus Christ
was telling his disciples and his disciples alone that he would
be mocked, scourged and crucified. but that afterwards he would
rise again. And that was told privately to
the disciples, personally and particularly to them. And in
John chapter 2 verse 23 is another verse. that the Lord Jesus Christ
went up to Jerusalem for the Passover. It was a feast time,
the place was full of people and we're told that when the
Lord spoke many believed in his name when they saw the miracles
that he did. but Jesus did not commit himself
unto them because he knew all men. And so there was a reservation,
there was a reluctance on the part of the Lord to tell these
people everything because he knew who they were, they knew
what they were, he knew their hearts, he knew all men and all
about all men. And in Matthew 13, The disciples
came to the Lord Jesus and they asked him, why do you speak in
parables? And he answered and said unto
them, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of
the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. And so the Lord taught people
personally, particularly, distinctly, he identified those to whom this
message would be most fully revealed. And so in this verse, in Matthew
chapter 11 verse 28, in this verse there is something very
personal about the Lord's invitation. When the Lord says, come unto
me, he says, come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy
laden. Now, what does that mean? Is
that a general revelation for everybody to come to Christ? To labour is to work or to struggle. and it is such people who need
rest. It's the labourer, it's the worker,
it's the person who is struggling that needs to have a rest. So
he used the word labour, come unto me all ye that labour, and
are heavy laden. Again, this is a word that speaks
of duress. To be heavy laden is to be carrying
a large or a difficult load. like a man carrying a great burden. Now let me say that the Lord
is not talking about our school work here, although that might
be a great burden to us, or our business work. He's speaking
about sin, but he uses this picture of a burden that is on our shoulders,
a burden that is on our back. He's not talking about carrying
a heavy bag, but he's talking about having that feeling of
guilt, having that weighed down conscience. that we've done wrong,
that we have sinned against God. And it is the knowledge of that
sin which weighs us down. It causes us grief, it causes
us anxiety in our hearts. We have regret for the things
that we have done. You know what the Bible calls
that? An amazing little phrase, he calls it godly sorrow. Godly sorrow is that regret which
some men and women have because of their sin. And it can last
for a long, long time. It can cause terrible amounts
of grief. It can come and it can go. And
sometimes we think that there will never be any relief from
this godly sorrow. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
speaking to such people. If you've ever felt that godly
sorrow, if you've ever felt regret for your sin, if you've ever
felt grief for the kind of person that you are, if you've ever
seen the holiness of God and then looked at your own life
and seen your sin and the wrong that you've done, the Bible calls
it iniquity. transgressions, there are lots
of words for it. The little word sin is as good
as any. You know what I mean when I say
it weighs you down, it becomes a burden and you become heavy
laden with that sense of guilt and sin. And that's the picture
that the Lord sets before us here because it's the Lord who
is speaking. In 2 Corinthians 7, verse 10,
that little phrase, godly sorrow, is used by the apostle. And he
says, godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation. And it's a salvation
not to be repented of. But the sorrow of the world worketh
death. So here is a difference. This
is a difference between just being sad about something and
sorry for something. but not doing anything about
it, and the godly sorrow which causes us to plead for forgiveness
before God, to look to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ as that
way of salvation, to understand something about the significance
of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross and the value of
the blood that he shed. Jesus is saying very simply here,
if you feel a burden of your sin, if you feel the weight of
your conscience, if you feel sad about the wrong that you've
done, sorry for your disobedience, not only against those around
you, not only against those that you've hurt, but against God. If you feel that labour, that
heavy laden, I can give you rest. I will give you ease. I will
give you peace and comfort in your time of trouble. And just
as Jesus' miracles were particular and his words were particular,
so Jesus' invitation is particular. And I don't say that to deter
anyone from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, but to point out
simply that this verse cannot be used to contradict the rest
of the Bible's clear teaching on the particular nature of the
work of grace and the personal promises of God to his elect
people. When the Saviour went to the
cross to deal with the problem of our sin, He did so for particular
people, chosen people. Men, women, boys, girls, to whom
God purposed to show His kindness and His mercy. and that does
not in any way lessen God's grace. It doesn't lessen the value of
its grace. In fact, in some respects, we
might be able to say that it makes it more wonderful because
it shows us how valuable and precious and rare it is. It's not something you just pick
up and put down at the whim of the sinful man. It isn't a right. It's a gift, it's a privilege. It's not universal for everyone,
but it is limited and personal and particular to those who labour
and are heavy laden under that burden of sin. And the Lord Jesus
Christ says, come to me, come unto me, and I will give you
rest. And that matters because the
rest that the Lord Jesus Christ speaks about is the rest from
the work and labour and conscience for sin. It's peace with God
instead of warring with God. It is liberty from our own works
of righteousness in place of the captivity under which the
law places us when we try to do good in order to gain justification
and peace with God. It is comfort in failure instead
of the sorrow that must come when the accuser brings before
us all our failures and lack of goodness. And these are real
blessings for real sinners with a real need. People like you
and like me. There's help for needy sinners
in Christ. And there's a welcome invitation
to all who see themselves in need. It's a gracious gospel
for needy sinners. Are you a needy sinner? then
this is a gracious gospel. If you see that need, if you
labour and are heavy laden, then this is a gospel of grace and
goodness for you. Now we'll talk some more about
that another day, but let me just say one thing more and then
we'll be done. There's nothing random or accidental
or unplanned about God's grace. It's personal, it's particular
and it is long time planned in the eternal purpose of God. That's
why we speak about the covenant of God or the covenant of grace
and peace. It is a promise and a purpose
that God made with himself and between the persons of the Godhead,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, long before you and I were ever
born. Indeed, even before this world
was made. This is how old this plan and
purpose is. And God gives his grace to whomsoever
he wills. It is his alone to give. It's
not mine to give, not the preacher's to give, not your parents to
give, or your teachers to give, or your friends to give. But
he prepares his people to receive it. And the way of preparation
is the experience of guilt for sin. Have you ever had to carry
a great weight and that could be physical or metaphorical,
but you can't put it down and you fear that it will crush you.
Our greatest burden is our sin and we need the Lord Jesus Christ
to take and carry that burden for us. Last night I got off
a plane after travelling for almost 20 hours and all I wanted
to do was sleep. You get to a point where you
can't keep your eyes open. Your body craves for rest, your
muscles, your mind, it cries out for relief. And that is what sin becomes. to those God, the Holy Spirit,
convicts of their need. He brings that sense of sin,
that sense of need into the souls of men and women, boys and girls,
and it works a weariness against our sin. And it works a desire
for a relief which never comes from our own doing. But it brings us to that place
where we hear the Lord Jesus Christ say in the gospel, come
unto me and I will give you rest. This is the Jesus that has borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows. By his death in our place, by
bearing our sins in his own body on the cross, and he is able
to give rest by lifting that burden from off of our shoulders
and taking it to himself. All who come to him by faith
will experience this. In Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25,
there's a little verse and it says this, Wherefore he is able
also to save them. This is salvation that the Lord
Jesus Christ gives. Salvation is not just a one-off
event in life. We are being saved every day
of our lives because we sin every day of our lives. And every day
of our life we have to come to the Lord Jesus Christ for that
rest and for the lifting of that heavy burden. He is able to save
them. Them. Who is this them? It is them who feel their need
of forgiveness, who feel a need of cleansing, who are so weary
that they just feel as if they must have rest, their whole body,
their souls crave rest. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
that one who is able to give us rest in our souls. It is them who hear his voice
in the gospel, come unto me and venture on him by faith, trusting
and believing that he who says come unto me will provide that
rest that he has promised. It is them that have tried to
save themselves and failed. When we say what? Can he save
them all? Does that even include me? He is able, says the writer to
the Hebrews, also to save them to the uttermost that come unto
God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. John 6.37 says, All that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh unto
me I will in no wise cast out. May God grant us that rest in
mercy, and let us find salvation in him. Amen.