Good morning. Let's turn, if
you would, in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11, and we'll
start reading in verse 25. And 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 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. And
this is the subject of our message this morning. Come unto me, all
ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now, I want to know, and I want
you to know, and ask yourself the question, Have you, have
I personally come unto the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, that's worth
knowing since he said in our passage here, come unto me. Now
there may be many reasons why you're here this morning. Perhaps
you know that you should be. You feel guilty if you don't.
Perhaps you have great guilt over something that you've done.
You're looking for a word of consolation. Perhaps you just
want to go to church and you agree with the preaching that's
here. Well, this is a good place to be. And a word of consolation
to the guilty is always welcome. And you may agree with what is
preached here, that it is in fact the truth. But none of these
reasons have anything to do with coming to Christ, but rather
self, guilt, self-agreement. What difference does it make
with God whether I feel guilty, whether I acknowledge that this
is the truth? It's true whether I acknowledge
it or not. To those who know the Savior and to those who have
not, The same words here are given in this passage. He says,
come unto me. When we come unto him, we find
out that it's not about me anymore. You see, when you find out it's
not about you anymore, you seek to worship the son. You seek
to glorify his name instead of yours. And you seek to see his
face. That I might know him. That I
might know who he is. If you haven't come, it's because
you would not come. He said to a group of people,
he said, you will not come to me that you might have life. And then next he said that they
that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. You see,
until we are brought to see that we are wretched, miserable, poor,
blind, and naked, we'll have no need to come unto him at all.
You see, before I can be filled, I must first be poured out. Before
I can be clothed with his righteousness, I first have to be stripped of
my own. And before I can be found, I must be lost. You see, everybody
desires the benefits but nobody considers the cost. We don't
want to bear the reproach of Christ. We don't want to be associated
with him and to be poured out and to be stripped and to be
lost. But if he's to please to send unto us his Holy Spirit
to reveal the person of Jesus Christ, you'll find that Savior
is no longer a word, but it's a person that you need. and you'll
find out that you're a sinner and you're gonna stop trying
to compare ourselves with somebody else and realize it was for my
sins that Christ had to die, even if it was for nobody else.
And you'll find in Him all that you'll ever need in this life
or the next. I found in Him a glory, a power,
and a righteousness that cannot be compared. One who is all powerful,
yet taketh time to know my frame and to remember that I'm dust.
I've learned of one of he is who is my God, but yet is a friend
that will never forsake me. Would you like to know the person
of whom I speak? And not only to know, but to
be known of. because there's many people that
we say we know that don't know us. I desire for him to know
me. The Lord said, come unto me,
all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And in coming, I will know three
things. First, I will know his promise. Secondly, I'll know
his power. And third, I'll know his purpose.
So I'll know these three things in coming to Him. Well, first,
what is His promise? His promise, if you look right
here in our text, in verse 28, He says, I'll give you rest.
Well, when do we rest? Well, we rest when there's nothing
else to do. There's nothing else needed to
be done. So this promise of rest, though, is predicated on the
words that come before it. They say, that you come unto
Me. There is no rest without coming
unto Him. Now we might find a lot of different
ways that we try to get there, but He said, I'm the door. There's
only one way. And so the only way we're going
to know anything of Christ, His gospel, His Father, any of this
is coming through Him. And so His promise to us this
morning is rest if we come to Him. Well, is this promise given
even unto me? Well, do I fit the description
of those to whom it's given? What does it say here? He says,
come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll
give you rest. If you aren't laboring and if
you aren't heavy laden, this promise is not for you. You can't
presume that it is. So I need to know now what it
is to labor and what it is to be heavy laden. Do you labor? Labor here. We can think of the
word work, think of the words to be weary. One writer described
it as toilsome labor. I've had the misfortune of working
some hard summer jobs before, one of which was working in a
brick plant, and every day we would grab bricks off an assembly
line and stack them. and stack them in an air-conditioned
room out in the Georgia summer. It was hot, and that, in my estimation
of what I've done at least, was about the worst, toilsome labor
I can imagine. It was grueling. At the end of
every day, your hands hurt, your sides hurt, your body hurt. You
had nothing left. This is toilsome labor. It's
a never-ending labor. There was always more bricks
coming down the line, and it was all I could do. Well, why
do you work? Why do we labor? Well, you work
to provide for what you don't have. You work that in the hope
that you're working will obtain something, or else why would
you work at all? Well, the Lord one morning was
walking along the beach and along the seaside, and he came across
some fishermen. They were out washing their nets.
They'd been working all night long. And he asked to come into
their boat, and he said, push out a little bit into the water.
And so they did, and so he began to preach to them. And after
he'd spoken to them, he said, launch out into the deep, go
out a little further, and let down your nets for a catch. Now,
at this point, they had worked all night, and by their accounts,
this was no expert fisherman talking to them. This was a man
who was declaring the gospel to them, and they'd been working
all night and knew what they were doing. And Simon, Simon
Peter said, Master, We have toiled all the night, and that word
toil is the same word for labor. We have toiled all the night
and have taken nothing. What do you find in your toiling,
in your laboring, in your working when it comes to the matters
concerning God? Can you ever do enough? Has your
working ever produced something that you might call a good work,
that you could therefore present before a holy God? And which
ones will He accept? Which ones of your good works
that you've worked? Well, if we're honest, our own
hearts condemn us. And I say that I've never produced
a work that once I could present to God that He would accept.
And so when you consider this, why would you keep working for
something you were never paid? If you showed up to a job to
do work, and they missed your first paycheck, you might be
a little confused. You work a little longer, the
second one doesn't come, and you start to get a little angry.
And then the third one comes, and there's no paycheck, and
you say, I'm done with this. You wouldn't keep working a job
where there wasn't some pay in the end. Well, this is what I'm
trying to say here in terms of our working before God. There
is no payment that I can make that ever produces anything.
No work and there's no payment that I can produce that He'll
accept. Peter said, Master, we've toiled
all the night and we've taken nothing. They've not produced
even one fish. And you've not produced even
one work before God that He can accept. But in looking to Christ,
and obeying his voice, despite what my experience tells me.
I've worked all night. I haven't caught any fish. There
are no fish here today. They're somewhere else. Nevertheless, at thy word, he
said, I let down the net. And what happened? You can imagine
he let the net down, and he was probably thinking nothing's going
to happen. He lets it down. If you've ever
been in a situation where you're not expecting something to happen,
then it happens real quick and you have to react. That net got
so full it probably about pulled them out of the boat. All these
fish went in there and they started having to yell for their friends
to come, help, help, we got so many we can't handle it. The
net's gonna break. And so you can imagine after
pulling all those fish in, looking at the Lord. That's when Simon
Peter fell down before him and said, I'm a sinful man. I didn't
believe, but yet the Lord provided. How much did he provide and show
him in his ability to do this? Can Jesus Christ provide what
you labor for? Or must you add something to
it? Well, we saw in this story here
they didn't. A salvation wrought from our
works produces nothing. His work alone is more than what
you'll need. They had so much fish in those
boats, it almost sank the boats. Well, that's what it is to work.
Well, are you heavy laden? This word can be translated as
burdened ones. And I realized in seeing this
that my sin is a burden. This is a burden that I can't
get rid of. I can never get rid of it. It's
always with me. And it's heavy. It weighs me
down. It's something that's always
with me, weighing me down. There's no forgetting that it's
there. We might forget for a moment, but it quickly reminds us how
quickly it does. Burdened by sin by not only what
you've done, but what you are. You see, when I say that I've
sinned, that makes me a sinner. And the reason that I'm a sinner
is because I have a sinful nature. and God hates sin, and there's
no getting around that, that I'm a sinner and God hates sin,
and if I'm a sinner, that associates me with it, so therefore, God
hates me standing in and of myself. I was a sinner in my past. I
find that I'm a sinner even now, and I have no hope that I will
be anything but a sinner tomorrow. My burden is heavy. And I only
keep adding to it. Somebody says, what's wrong with
you? Why would you keep doing that? I don't know. I keep doing
it. I can't stop. Well, sinner, if
this is you, then I have good news for you. Because this is
to whom the promise is given. All ye that labor and are heavy
laden, come unto me and I'll give you rest. Are you weary
with your labor, never producing anything, and so heavy laden
that you can't bear the load? My sin is too great, I can't
bear it. Then you have every reason to come to the Lord Jesus
Christ for rest. He said, I've not come to call
the righteous, but sinners unto repentance. The righteous would
be those that are self-righteous, people that find satisfaction
in who they are and what they do, that somehow they're different
or better than somebody else before God. The Lord said, I'm
not come for them, but I'm come for sinners to call unto repentance. Well, what's repentance? Repentance
is only a change of mind. To those who labor, now you see
that your works are not accepted. and that they only add to your
condemnation. My mind's been changed. I'm looking
to Christ's work instead of mine. It's all that I need, because
it's all that I've got. And to those bearing a heavy
load, where is now the burden that you bear? Christ died for
your sins. They're no more. You don't have
that load. He took it. God's satisfied. Why won't you be? I don't have
to punish myself over old sins if Christ died for them. Let's
stop finding excuses about why we can't come and why we can't
believe and realize that you can come to Christ for a new
heart to believe. You might find every reason in
yourself not to come, but you can come to Him for the ability
to believe, for righteousness, for acceptance before God in
Jesus Christ. He says, come unto me. Rest from your works. Rest from
the burden of sin and the burden of guilt. There's nothing more
to do. Christ has finished the work
to be done. I'll only rest in this promise,
and this is his promise, if I believe that he has the power to perform
it. You see, I can make the promise
that everyone in here will live until next week. Now, I'm convinced
that everyone in here will live until next week. There's nobody
in here that's that sick that I think you're going to die in
a week. And really, I can do some research to prove, yes,
I think they would say that it's most likely that you would live
until next week. And I'm also sincere. I want
you to live until next week. and I'll even work to help ensure
that it's so to protect you from being in situations that are
dangerous that might get you killed. Let's eat healthy and
try to take care of ourselves for a week just to get to next
week. That's my promise. The problem is I have no power
to make that come to pass. You see, I have some will, I
have some ability, and I have some strength. But what happens
when what I'm trusting in encounters something that's stronger? that
I can't bear. Are you willing to put any part
of your eternal hope of salvation in anything that you do and are
responsible for delivering holy, pure, and perfect before God? I'm not. I know myself. The Lord
said, come unto me. all you that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. I will, not you will, not we
will together, I will give you rest. Well, how can he say that?
Look up at verse 27. He says, all things are delivered
unto me of my father. All things, your next breath,
your next heartbeat, the thoughts you have in your head, Your intelligence
you possess, and the faith you may claim, even your earthly
goods, these are all things. All things are delivered unto
you by the hand, the will, and the might of Jesus Christ, who
is one with the Father. Turn with me over to Romans chapter
12, if you would. Look at verse 3. For I say, through the grace
that is given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to
think of himself more highly than he ought, but to think soberly,
and soberly just means a moderate estimate, a moderate view of
yourself, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure
of faith. So what he says here, this grace, the grace that you
have, it's been given. The grace that I have, it's been
given. So if you or I have more grace, more faith, more strength
in time of trial than somebody else, or even an easier life
where you see everything they do is probably their fault or
somebody, it looks like it's totally out of their hands what's
happening to them. If we have anything more than anybody else,
remember, who gave it to you and why did you get it? First
Corinthians 4.7 says, for who maketh thee to differ for another?
And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou
didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received
it? All who come to Christ come on
the same grounds, whether it's the first time you've come or
that this is the last time you'll come before you leave this earth.
We come as a sinner in need of mercy and grace. Remember what
you are and remember where you were when he found you. And we
don't ever get beyond that. You see, he has been delivered
the power over all things. And I look to his promise, but
I trust in his power to perform it. He says, come unto me. Well, how do I come? because
that's really what we need to get to. How do I come? He says,
you cannot come unto me except it be given thee of my Father.
Faith is the gift of God. So I'm asking how do I come and
you're telling me I can't come except it be given thee of my
Father. Here we see a gift is never earned,
a gift is never deserved. You don't buy yourself a gift
and call it a gift. A gift is never required. He
says, you cannot come unto me. Well, how do I know if I can
come? I want to come. How do I know if I can? Well,
there was a night that the disciples got into a ship and got out on
the sea. And they were sailing at night.
The waves started throwing their boat around. And they looked
out and they saw someone walking out on the water. They all got
afraid. and they thought it was a ghost,
they didn't know who it was, and the Lord spoke up and he
said, be of good cheer, it's I. And then Peter said unto him,
Lord, bid me to come unto thee upon the water. You see, he didn't
know if he could come. Everything in his experience
and what he knew about the water would be that if he stepped out
on that water, he'd sink straight to the bottom. But he knew and
he trusted and he said, Lord, bid me to come unto thee. Because
if the Lord gave him the ability and the power to do so, he believed
that he would. That which is outside of our comprehension
and ability to do, walking on the water. That which is outside
of your ability and comprehension to do, coming to Christ. Lord,
save me. Isn't that saying the same thing?
Lord, save me. I can't even understand what
that means, but I know that I need it. I know that I can't do it.
Lord, save me. Do that which is outside of my
ability to do and comprehend. Will you do for me what I can't?
To believe, to give me faith, to repent, to even come to thee. Lord, bid me to come unto thee."
And what was his response? One word, come. What happened? Peter walked on the water. He
did that which is outside of his ability to understand or
to do, or power to control, but yet he was in the Lord's hand
and he gave him the ability to do it. Now after coming, he looked
away from Christ. He started seeing the waves,
he started considering his ability, his safety, everything that he
knew, and then he began to sink. And he said, Lord, save me. And the Lord immediately reached
out and grabbed him by the hand. So, when we come to Christ, we
come to Christ looking to nowhere else, despite how things may
seem. Turn with me, if you would, over
to Genesis chapter 8. And do you realize if the Lord
bids you to come, you will come? That's the confidence we can
have in asking. Genesis chapter 8. Look in verse 6. And it came
to pass at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of
the ark which he had made. And he sent forth a raven which
went forth to and fro until the waters were dried up from the
earth. And also he sent forth a dove
from him to see if the waters were abated from the face of
the ground. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot.
And she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were
on the face of the whole earth. And then he put forth his hand,
and he took her, and he pulled her in unto him into the ark."
My friends, the ark here is Christ. And in this world, Just as this
dove did, you're going to find no rest. This dove would have
had to fly forever and eventually she would get tired and fall
and drown and die. And this is her laboring. So
whether seeing his glory for the first time or whether seeing
his glory for the last time, your prayer will be the same
as he did with this weary dove who found no rest for her foot.
He put forth his hand and he took her. And he pulled her into
the ark unto him. You see, there's safety and there's
rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not outside, not around, but
in him. That's why the operation he did
on this dove was he grabbed her. That dove wasn't seeking him.
He reached out and grabbed her and pulled her in. And I pray
that he'd do the same to me. Pull me in unto thee, Lord. He
put forth his hand and he took her, pulled her into the ark.
Now, There is safety in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord bid me to
come unto thee. And lastly, all things are done
for his purpose. So I've heard of his promise,
which is rest, if I come unto him, and if I'm one of the ones
who is laboring and heavy laden, and I can see his power, all
things are delivered unto him from his father. But now we'll
find the reason, the reason why. Well, the purpose is that he
might receive the glory that is due unto his name. How is
he glorified in completing all the work that the father gave
him to do? Father gave him a people and he said, these are mine.
And he said, don't you lose a one. And Christ said, I'll stand up
and I'll be the surety for them. I will ensure their safety. He
became a man, and he became my substitute. He took my sin that
I deserved to die for. He made it his own, and he became
guilty for it. It was his sin. That's why he
died, the death of the cross. And being raised unto God, having
defeated death, hell, and Satan, he redeemed his people. This
is the work that the Father gave him to do. And he is glorified
in his dying and saving of undeserving sinners. Do you realize that
if Jesus Christ died for you, you must be saved? There is no
way that you can't be. And this is the Father's will,
which has sent me, that of all which he hath given me, that
I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last
day. There is not one lost who was given, not one of the ones
that the Father chose. The child of God rejoices to
see Christ exalted and for himself to be brought low. Whosoever
will, let him come after me. Let him deny himself, take up
his cross, and follow me. Lord, bid me to come. Make me
willing. Lord, honor this prayer, not
the words. How many words do I say that I don't even know
what I'm saying or what I mean? But Lord, make this desire my
heart, not just what I think I need to say or what I need
to know. Make this the desire of my heart. Lord, bid me to
come. I want to be made willing to deny ourselves, to mortify
this flesh. You see, I sin, but yet I have
a hatred of sin. How can that be? Paul called
his flesh this body of death. And we side with the Lord in
its destruction. I ought to be destroyed for what
I am. I've sinned that I perverted that which is right, and it profited
me not. I say that with Job. Lord, give
me the strength to come unto thee. If you don't give me the
strength, I can't come. To come is to believe. In 1 Peter
2, Pooh 4, it says, to whom coming. You see, to whom coming indicates
that this is not just coming once. We're always coming. We're
always coming into Him for everything that we need. To whom coming. What that hymn that we sing made
me think of this. I need thee every hour. Stay
thou nearby. Temptations lose their power
when thou art nigh. I need thee. Oh, I need thee. Every hour I need thee. Oh bless
me now my Savior. I come to thee Come unto me all
ye that labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. I Want
to tell you a story that I read in a book. I Think it was one
of mr. Spurgeon's friends. He said there
was a man that worked in a mill and And he had a boss who understood
and knew the gospel. And his boss began to witness
to him. And this man would listen and
he'd say, you know, I just, I'm too sinful. I, you know, you
don't know me. You don't know the things that
I've done. I can't be one. I can't come. I can't come to
him. And this man went on this way and eventually he just wouldn't
hear anymore. He wouldn't hear his witness
because he just viewed himself as too far gone. Well, one day
he showed up to work and there was a note on his desk that said,
from his boss, that said, come to my house immediately after
work. So he worked his day and at five
o'clock, closed down the mill, locked it up, got in his car
and drove over to his boss's house. Knocks on the door. His boss opens the door. What
can I do for you? Why are you here? And he said,
well, What are you talking about? He said, you left a note on my
desk that said to come immediately to your house after work, and
I'm here. His boss said, and that's the
only reason you're here? He said, well, yes, that's the
only reason I'm here. He said, well, come on in. He
opened up his Bible, and he said, now, you told me that the only
reason that you're here is because I left a note on your desk. And
it said to come here after work. And you're here because of that,
right? Yes. Now why am I here? He said, now I'm a man, and you
believe me. And I am far beneath the Son
of God. And we have here in the word
of the Son of God, he says, come unto me, all you that labor and
are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Will you not come at
his word, but you'll obey mine? You come to the Lord Jesus Christ. You are commanded to come. You
can't come, Lord? Bid me to come. Ask. Come to
Jesus Christ for rest from your labor and a lifting of your burden
of sin. And let me give you something
that'll give you the confidence in coming. First, because he
said to. That's reason enough. The second
is, he said that he that cometh into me I want to know why it's
cast out. If you come to him, he's saying,
I'll never cast you out. I have no reason to. Why? Because all the Father giveth
me shall come to me. If you come to me, then you will
come to me because the Father gave you to me. That's why you're
coming. And secondly, he said, this is the Father's will which
is sent me that with all which he has given me, I should lose
nothing. You'll never be cast out. If you come, it's because
you were given of the Father, and he's saying that I'll lose
none. None of those that come unto me I'm going to be lost.
Not one. So if you come to Jesus Christ
as an undeserving sinner, in need for Him to save you, I can
say on the authority of the Scripture that He will. He will do it. You'll never be cast out. He
can't lose one. So come to Christ. all ye that are laboring and
heavy laden and he will give you rest. Let's bow our heads
in prayer.