Come to Me — Sermon by Rev. Canon Bryan Biba

The Lord is gracious and merciful,

long-suffering and of great kindness.

The Lord is loving to everyone and his

mercy is over all his works.

All your works praise you, O Lord, and

your faithful servants give thanks to

you.

In the name of the Father and the Son

and the Holy Spirit. Amen. You may be

seated.

Happy 250th birthday, United States of

America.

[applause]

It's good to see so many people

festively dressed. I hope you uh spent

some time with friends and family

yesterday. I spent most of my day uh at

the beach, which was a lot of fun. And

as I was sitting on the beach uh looking

out over the coast, I started thinking

and just reflecting,

man, how things have changed in 250

years, right? 13 colonies now 50 states.

I mean, think of all the technological

innovation and the changes in our world.

But amidst all of these changes,

there is one thing that has not changed.

And that's the truth that America

desperately needs the gospel of Jesus

Christ. Amen.

The gospel is the antidote for our

nation's problems.

I know this is quite a statement to say,

but hear me out. Today, we are faced

with many challenges. Some are old

challenges that our founders foresaw.

Others are new, novel problems unique to

this age. Yet, no matter the challenge,

old or new,

all of our problems have the same

source, the sinful human heart.

And God's answer, God's antidote

for the sinful human heart is the gospel

of Jesus Christ.

God heals our nation. He heals our

entire world first by healing sinful

human hearts. And one by one, as lives

are transformed by the Holy Spirit, as

people are welcomed into Christ's body,

the church, God advances his kingdom and

we participate in the renewal of all

things.

As Paul writes in the beginning of his

letter to Romans chapter 1, I am not

Romans 1 · chapter mention

ashamed of the gospel, for it is the

power of God for salvation to all who

believe. That was true then and that is

still true now.

And yet

in every time and in every place the

church has faced the same old challenge.

The temptation to change the gospel to

exchange it for another gospel. We see

this temptation in the New Testament in

the earliest Christian writings in

Galatians chapter 1. Paul begins that

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

letter by saying, "I am astonished that

you are so quickly deserting him who

called you in the grace of Christ and

are turning to a different gospel."

Why do we do this? Why do we feel the

need to change the gospel, to preach

something different than what Christ has

already said?

Well, I think that as our world changes,

many of us feel the need to change with

the world, to speak to the world in a

way that they can hear, to become more

relevant.

And while that's a good instinct in so

many ways, at the core of that is a loss

of faith in the gospel's power. We begin

to believe that we own the gospel and

that it's our preaching of the gospel

that makes it effective.

Thanks be to God for our readings this

morning. It's a reminder to us of what

the gospel is and what God does through

it.

I was really encouraged this week

reading Matthew 11

27. Jesus says, "All things have been

handed over to me by my father, and no

one knows the Son except the Father, and

no one knows the Father except the Son,

and anyone to whom the Son chooses to

reveal him." Friends, that's really good

news for a preacher like me.

Jesus is in the one in control

of who is revealed, who he reveals

himself to. He's the one in control of

the gospel's work, of its effectiveness.

We don't have to engineer its

effectiveness. All we have to do is

preach it faithfully and let Jesus do

the work.

Amen.

>> So this morning in our gospel readings,

we are reminded of two core tenants of

the gospel. two core tenants that we

must hold on to faithfully if we are to

proclaim the gospel in our day and age.

Two core tenants that I believe are

under challenge and threat today. So

let's start with the first one. Open

your Bible with me to Matthew chapter

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

11. This is a very familiar passage to

many of us. We we hear it every week in

the comfortable words and for good

reason. Jesus says in verse 28, chapter

11,

"Come to me

all who labor and are heavy laden, and I

will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and

you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is

light."

This friends is our first core tenant of

the gospel. Let's break it down. Jesus

begins with come to me. The gospel is an

invitation for us to come to Jesus. Not

to come to the church. Although the

church is good, the reason we come to

church is to meet Jesus because he

invites us here in his word, in his

sacrament, in the Holy Spirit, in

community with one another.

Jesus invites all to come to him. But

specifically,

he invites

all who are labor and heavy laden.

Those who are tired, those who are worn

out,

those who are burned.

Anyone tired, worn out, and burned this

morning?

Jesus sends his invitation to these

specific people.

those who've been beaten up and trampled

down underfoot.

It's these in particular Jesus longs to

come to him. Why? And I will give you

rest. The gospel is an invitation. It's

the good news of the rest that we can

find only in Jesus Christ.

As the book of Hebrews says so well, the

Sabbath rest promised at the very

beginning creation is now given to us in

Jesus Christ. An eternal unending rest

available to us now.

Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus does not tie

up heavy burdens.

His yoke is easy. His burden is light.

Has anyone got any heavy burdens this

morning?

If you have them, they're not from

Jesus.

They're coming from somewhere else.

Jesus wants to take those burdens off

you and put his light and easy yoke on

your shoulders. His yoke of love and

Sabbath rest.

The whole point of the gospel, as Jesus

says, is that we will find rest for our

souls. A peace that only he can give. A

peace that passes understanding. Jesus

is not a harsh taskmaster.

He is gentle and lowly in heart.

Friends, do you know that this is one of

the few places where Jesus describes his

own character?

If you were to think of Jesus, how would

you describe him?

Jesus thinks of himself as humble and

lowly of heart and he invites us to come

to him.

He doesn't force his love on us. He

patiently beckons us. He woos us with

kindness and grace.

This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Come

to me all who labor and are heavy laden

and I will give you rest.

And so now we must ask ourselves,

is this the gospel we preach?

Is the American church faithfully

proclaiming the goodness of the gentle

and lowly Jesus who invites us to come

and rest?

Or are we preaching a different gospel?

I think if we're honest with ourselves,

all too often the American church

proclaims a gospel of performance.

We measure our worth by what we can do

for God.

We value our productivity

over his presence. And so we work

without ceasing, seeking to secure our

futures

rather than resting and trusting in

God's provision.

Jesus invites us into a very different

kind of life.

A life where we are welcomed as his

children. We are heirs of the kingdom.

Our worth is given. It's not earned.

This is why Archbishop Thomas Kramer

made Matthew 28 the first of his

comfortable words. Every week when we

confess our sins, when we receive

absolution, the English reformers wanted

to remind us of the gospel. And the

invitation begins with not you're a

sinner.

Sinners in the hands of an angry god as

Jonathan Edwards famously preached but

no come to me all who labor and are

heavy laden.

It doesn't do away with sin. The

comfortable words end with sin. If

anyone sins, we have an advocate with

the father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

He is the propitiation for our sins.

Reminding us also of John 3:16. God so

John 3:16

loved the world that he came not to

condemn the world, to save the world.

If you like me and you have trouble

evangelizing to your neighbors, you're

not sure what to say, just share the

comfortable words. Come to me. Jesus

says, "Come to me."

Whatever burdens you're bearing, Jesus

wants to take them from you. And trust

the Holy Spirit to do the work in their

heart.

The second core tenant of the gospel is

in our reading from Romans chapter 7.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

And as we often do with the book of

Romans, we have to set things up with

some context. So there's a lot going on

here.

In Romans 7:20, Paul is describing the

Romans 7:20

inner conflict of the Christian life.

So I find it to be a law that when I

want to do right, evil lies close at

hand.

Paul is describing this reality that we

when we feel we're on the right track,

when we feel like we're drawing close to

God, like we're doing the right things,

it's at that moment that our flesh, the

world, the devil strike back to distract

us.

Is anyone distracted by the world and

the flesh and the devil this week? I was

today.

Most of the time, our experience of sin

is not external forces attacking us.

Rather, it's the internal forces waring

against us.

Paul goes on to describe verses 22- 23.

For on one hand I delight in the law of

God in my inner being. But I see in my

members another law waging war against

the law of my mind, making me captive to

the law of sin that dwells in my

members.

Friends, in this time in between, the

already and not yet, we have two

realities waging war within us. the new

human nature given to us by Christ, the

part of us that wants to love God and

love neighbor and the old human nature,

the selfish part of us.

These are constantly waring within us.

And Paul does a really good job of

describing what this is like in verse

24. Wretched man that I am. Do you know

that you are wretched?

Look at your neighbor. Tell them you're

wretched.

This me word wretched, we don't like

this word, but what it means is that we

desperately need help.

That we can't save ourselves.

That we're caught. No matter how hard we

try, we feel the weight and the

condemnations of our failures.

wretched man that I am. Who will deliver

me from this body of death?

Here's the good news. Verse 25. Thanks

be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So then I myself serve the law of God

with my mind, but with my flesh I serve

the law of sin.

Jesus Christ, friends, is our deliverer.

He is our savior. He is the one who

saves us from our wretchedness and makes

us new creatures. All we have to do is

to let go and allow him to save us.

And here we have the second core tenant

of the gospel. Romans chapter 8 verse

Romans 8 · chapter mention

one.

There is therefore

now no condemnation for those who are in

Christ Jesus.

The gospel is not about condemnation.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good

news of our justification.

We have been made righteous by what

Christ has done for us. Christ has set

us free.

Those who are in Christ have been

declared and made beloved children of

God.

See friends, condemnation is animated by

a distorted view of God. If we see God

primarily as a judge, as a harsh

taskmaster,

then we will live our lives in fearful

of condemnation. And as we internalize

this false view of God, we begin to

condemn ourselves for our failures. And

then pretty soon, we'll begin to condemn

other people,

standing in judgment over them.

But what the gospel tells us, what

Christ tells us is that God is our

loving father. He adopts us as his

children not because of anything we have

done but because of his love

and that the father sends the son to

suffer for us to identify with us.

We are his beloved and as his beloved

there is no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And we have to stop again and ask

ourselves, is this the gospel we preach?

Is the American church proclaiming there

is no condemnation for those in Christ

Jesus? Or are we saying something else?

Again, I think if we're honest, American

Christians are often the first to

condemn, the first to point a finger,

the first to point out the speck in our

neighbor's eye. We stand in judgment

over the sins of others rather than

acknowledging the judgment of God over

us and his great mercy in spite of it.

Now to be clear, in God there is no

conflict between mercy and justice.

These two are united together in his

love. We can't oppose these two

dimensions of God's love. True love is

both merciful and just. And so we have

to avoid that trap of pitting them

against each other. My point this

morning is what do we lead with?

Are we leading with justice

or with mercy?

Are we meeting leading with condemnation

or justification?

One of my mentors is uh Bishop Ashley

Null who is the Anglican bishop of North

Africa. He's also a scholar of the

English Reformation in Germany. And in

addition to his work as a scholar and as

a bishop, uh, Bishop Null has developed

this very unique ministry to elite

athletes,

he has been the chaplain to the British

uh, Olympic team for the past six

Olympics. He also is the chaplain to

many German athletes. He recently wrote

a book about this ministry and in it he

says something very interesting. He says

that

many elite athletes have a deep sense of

condemnation that motivates their

performance.

Underneath the competitive drive and

desire to win is a deep sense of

inadequacy. They want to prove that

they're worthy, that they're worth it.

Many Olympians believe the lie that

their value and worth is determined by

their performance. And if they fail to

perform, as they inevitably will do

because we're human,

they are overwhelmed with self-

condemnation.

Not to mention the condemnation of

social media.

Now, you or I may not be Olympic

athletes,

but I suspect many of us feel the same

way.

We feel that our value as people is

determined by our performance by what we

can do. And when we inevitably fail

because none of us are perfect, we

condemn ourselves and we beat ourselves

up or we judge the people we love by

their performance. And when they

inevitably fail us, we condemn them for

what they haven't done.

Bishop null rightly points out

that the answer to this cycle of

performance and condemnation

is the gospel of Jesus Christ. In

particular, the gospel as articulated by

the English Reformation.

And he succinctly says it this way.

Only God's unconditional love for

sinners can inspire sinners to love God

more than sin.

Let me say that again.

Only God's unconditional love for

sinners can inspire sinners to love God

more than sin.

That's how God changes human hearts. Not

with condemnation, not with judgment,

but with his love. He says, "Come to me

all who labor and are heavy laden, and I

will give you rest. Take my yoke upon

you and learn from me. I am gentle and

lowly in heart, and you will find rest

for your souls."

And when we rest in Christ Jesus, we

learn the deeper truth that there is no

condemnation for those who are in Christ

Jesus. that if we are burdened or

condemned, that's coming from the world,

the flesh, and the devil, not coming

from Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God that he is patient with

us. We read this in the rule of St.

Benedict during Sunday school. God

patiently waits for us to receive his

love.

He has all eternity. We're the ones

today that must decide how we're going

to respond.

To let go of our burdens, to let go of

our condemnation,

and then receive his love, or to hold on

tight to the judgment that we have over

ourselves and others.

Friends, my prayer is that the church in

America will remain faithful to these

core tenants of the gospel in our age

for another 250 years and to the very

end of the ages.

In the name of the Father and of the Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.