"Jesus Wants You" Matthew 11:25-30 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Thank you, Jesse, for asking me to open the word with you all this morning.

You can turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

If you have a Pew Bible in front of you, it's page 816.

Before we read the text, I just want to make clear what I want to convince you of this morning from this text, what I think Jesus would have you hear.

And it's real simple.

Jesus wants you.

Let me read for us.

Matthew 11, starting in verse 25.

At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

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.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Mary, it's just a made-up name for her, said that she was depressed.

She felt like she couldn't go on.

Her boyfriend had broken up with her.

Life with her parents was just a constant fight.

And she had started cutting herself to dull the pain.

Andrew said that he just wished the painful thoughts would go away.

He couldn't keep a job because of his frequent panic episodes.

His mom was trying to kick him out of the house, and all of his friends had long ago left him behind.

Nancy said that she hated her own family.

Four kids, a small house, husband who wasn't at home all that often.

She's felt like the crushing weight of life was pushing down on her almost to the degree that she thought about ending it all.

Mary and Andrew and Nancy all said the same thing.

Friend, maybe you're here this morning and you don't think anyone wants you.

Maybe it's not loneliness or fear or depression.

Maybe it's just hard to get up in the morning.

You don't know why you go to work or why you do what you do.

Maybe it's relationships don't seem like they're going anywhere.

Issues at work, issues at home.

Maybe you don't even want to be here this morning.

Maybe you feel unwanted too.

Well, I want to talk to you.

If nobody else wants you.

Not just you all, you specifically.

The answer, I think, in this text is yes.

If you hear me hear this, Jesus wants you.

Whoever you are.

He's the only hope for the hopeless.

He is the only rest for the weary.

He is the only friend for the unwanted.

Jesus wants you.

This text has two halves to it that seem almost incompatible when you first read them.

Until you see at the center of it Jesus' desire for sinners to come to him.

In this text, there's proof that Jesus wants even you.

And me.

And that's going to be our outline, the proof that Jesus wants you.

Here's the first proof.

He shows you God.

He shows you God.

Let's get acclimated in this text first in order to understand it.

Matthew chapter 11, got some messengers from John the Baptist who come to Jesus, and Jesus turns to rebuke the Galileans for rejecting John the Baptist and his ministry.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

And then in verse 20, you see Jesus has a little fire and brimstone speech for these three cities that are around the Sea of Galilee, where most of his ministry took place.

This is kind of the HQ where they would have seen most of the miracles that were going on.

His judgment on them is that they saw these miracles, which Jesse's preached through eight and nine, the healing of the paralyzed servant, the demoniac and the garrisons, the woman with the issue of blood, Jairus' daughter, the blind man, the mute man, all of these healings, and it says in verse 1, all of this preaching and teaching, and yet they did not repent.

That's what it says in verse 21.

What he's saying is, I have been showing you God all of this time, and you have been saying back to me, No, you're not.

And so he compares them to a few famous sincities.

He says their judgment will be even more severe than them because of the extraordinary miracles that they have witnessed.

And on the heels of this bitter curse, Jesus turns to pray.

Look at verse 25.

At that time Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.

Stop there.

This is the first recorded prayer of Jesus publicly.

This word for thank could be confessing or praising, declaring who God is.

Jesus calls him Father, which is kind of odd.

The Jews wouldn't have normally called him just Father, maybe our Father, but not that very familial term.

But then he also uses this title, Lord of heaven and earth.

It's this exalted phrase to describe God as the sovereign, the creator, the Lord of the universe.

Nothing out from under his sway, including the hearts of unbelieving Galileans, including your heart and mine.

He says, I thank you, Father Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding.

These things, I think, is probably a description of Jesus' teaching about the kingdom, his revealing of who God is and the way of salvation in the gospel.

And he says, You've hidden these things from the wise and understanding.

Well, who's that?

Well, he's not saying that if you have a 4.0 and a PhD, you got wickedness down in your heart.

That's not what he's going for here.

Wise and understanding is arrogant independence.

Thinking you are wiser than God.

You don't need him.

Relying on works, relying on the law, saying I'm a good person.

Maybe even saying, I don't even think God exists.

All of us are born like this.

I talk to so many students, we need campus ministry at George Mason every week.

I talk to so many students who sound like this.

They think they outsmarted God.

Is that you're not?

It's like sitting on an airplane, crowded cabin, screaming, I don't need an airplane to fly.

Yeah, you're the crazy one.

You stand on this earth that God made with a life that he gave you.

You say you don't need him?

How wise and understanding are you?

He hides these things from the wise and understanding and he reveals them to little children.

This word little children is infant, baby, nursing baby.

It's helpless, dependent, needy.

My wife is now about five months pregnant with our second child, little girl.

And I'm about to be reminded once again how helpless and needy and dependent a newborn baby is.

They can't feed themselves, can't clothe themselves, can't burp themselves.

These little things can't even hold up their own head.

That's the picture that Jesus uses to describe Christians.

People who come to him, people to whom the Father reveals himself.

People who are needy and dependent and helpless.

Basically, people who know they need a savior.

The point here is you can't go to God arrogant.

Jesus is thanking God that he doesn't let anyone lift a haughty eye in heaven.

Friends, there are no defiant fists behind the pearly gates, only bent knees.

Jesus shows you God to humble you.

He shows you God so that you'll see him in all of his magnificence and seeing him be exposed for who you are and humbled like a child.

Now you may hear this and think to yourself, well, this still just doesn't sound fair or loving.

God's hiding things from people.

Well, first of all, appreciate that the wise and understanding have self-selected out of the kingdom.

Nobody's going to hell for something they didn't do.

They chose that life of rebellion.

Second of all, remember who it is that Jesus is showing to you.

He's showing you God.

The Lord of heaven and earth, the sovereign creator, the one who is due all worship.

We don't get to talk back to that God any more than the clay gets to chastise the potter, Isaiah says.

Like, why so harsh?

Here's his response.

Quote What's wrong with you people?

I'm serious.

I mean, this is what's wrong with the Christian church today.

We don't know who God is and we don't know who we are.

The question is, why wasn't it infinitely more severe?

Friends, when Jesus shows you God, he is showing you the thrice holy Lord of heaven and earth, the perfect creator, the righteous judge.

If when you see this God in the face of Jesus, your response is anything less than humbled abasement and worship before him, then you have either seen a false Jesus or a false version of yourself because sovereignty has to humble you.

Friend, if it feels like your life is out of your control, good.

It is.

But not out of his.

Jesus ends this prayer, and then in verse 27, he turns to the crowds and he addresses them and he says, This all things have been handed over to me by my Father.

He's saying, He is the means by which God gives this revelation of himself.

And don't miss this, this is a claim to deity as well.

God doesn't just hand over all authority to anyone, it's only to someone who's equal with him.

And so Jesus continues, and no one knows the Son except the Father.

There's some kind of Trinitarian mystery going on here about the love relationship between the Father and the Son that nobody else gets to break in on, and then Jesus flips it, and no one knows the Father except the Son.

Friends, this is the greatest problem of any age.

That God within the Trinity is known and loved and has perfect satisfaction and joy, and nobody else has access.

He is too holy for us to get into that love relationship.

Nobody is worthy.

But notice that Jesus doesn't end there, does he?

No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

This word for chooses could just as well be translated once.

Who he wants to reveal him.

John 1.18 says that Jesus explains the Father to us.

That he shows us who God is, so that we would know him, so that we'd be humbled.

And that we would enter into this inter-Trinitarian web of love and joy and satisfaction.

I mean, Jesus even prays this way in John 17.

I may known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known to you, known to them, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.

Jesus wants you to participate in the love and joy of the Trinity.

Do you?

So many people want to go to heaven.

Nobody wants to be humbled.

So they invent a false God that they don't have to fear.

One that they can kind of get their arms all the way around.

That's not the one that Jesus shows you.

Jesus shows you God.

And that has to humble you.

He shows you the awesome sovereign Lord to cut the legs out from under your pride so that you could go to heaven the only way anyone can.

On your knees.

Humbled.

And that's a demonstration, friend, that he wants you.

He shows you, God, to humble you so that you're ready to hear this invitation.

Which is the next way that we know he wants you.

He tells you to come.

Look at verse 28.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

There's almost this implied so at the beginning of this verse.

There's no separation in the original text here.

It just goes from one thought to the next.

Jesus is saying, God only reveals himself to these little babies, these little children.

That's the only way you're getting in.

And then he turns to the crowd and he says, Come to me.

It's like he's saying, I want you to be that one.

I want you to be one of the ones that comes to me.

Won't you humble yourself?

Won't you come to me?

Won't you lay down your pride and your sin and come?

Come to me.

This is not just an altar call.

This isn't walk an aisle, pray a prayer, sign a card.

This isn't take home a new religion today.

This is the sinless Son of God speaking to you through the words of Scripture and saying to you, come, come to me.

Jesus uses this word come all over the gospels.

It has a kind of urgency to it.

It's like you're in danger.

You need to come right now.

Come.

He says in Matthew 22, come to the wedding feast.

Matthew 4, come to me and I'll make you fishers of men.

Matthew 19, come and follow me.

John 7, 37, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Sounds like the Old Testament prophets, doesn't he?

Isaiah 55, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.

He who has no money, come, buy and eat.

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Reminds me of the father with the two prodigal sons.

The second one, you remember, he was outside of the house.

He didn't want to come in.

You never threw me a party.

Remember what the father says?

My son.

Everything I have is yours.

It's like he's saying, come on.

Come on home.

Notice where Jesus tells you to come.

Come to me.

Not come to a program.

Not come to an experience.

Not come to a law.

Come to a person.

Come to me.

This is not abstract.

This is as real as it gets.

Come to me.

I want you with me.

Come.

Be with me.

That's what I want.

Come to me.

He's pursuing you for himself.

He wants you.

Because he wants you, he pleads with you to come in a few ways.

Here's the first way.

He tells you to come needy.

Look who he is calling.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden.

I think this is a parallel of the infants, the previous verses.

This is, if you're at the end of your rope, if you're just beat down and worn down, this is you.

I think he's being intentionally broad here for a couple reasons.

One, because he used the word all, it's pretty inclusive.

And secondly, because the words that he uses, labor, just hard work, any kind of hard work, heavy burden.

It's any kind of burden.

It's any kind of physical, spiritual burden whatsoever.

Basically, anyone who's beat down, anyone who's needy, anyone who's dependent or helpless.

He says, come to me if you've tried your whole life to just be a good person and follow the rules, but you know you're not.

He says, come to me if you're just sick of your sin and you wish you could lay it down and not have such a nagging conscience.

He says, come to me if you think you've gone too far.

And nobody could possibly want you.

You're too dirty.

He says, come to me if you're just tired and just worn out by life in this broken world.

But you hear him calling to you.

I love to hear this kind of invitation.

I'm a filthy sinner.

And I need him.

I hope you love it too.

But you might have objections.

Isn't it true that Jesus only wants the elect to come to him?

2 Peter 3.9.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you.

Listen to this.

Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Ezekiel 18, 23, have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?

declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live.

Or Luke 19 and Matthew 23, Jesus himself standing over Jerusalem, a city that is constantly rejecting him, weeping, and saying, Oh, how many times I would have gathered to myself, but you would not come.

Friends, there's a complexity in the heart of God that we would do well to embrace rather than to demand a simplified explanation.

It doesn't matter who you are.

Are you burdened?

Jesus wants you.

And he says, Come.

You might object, but Dan, what if I'm not one of the elect?

Here's what John Bunyan writes Quote, if Satan therefore objects, but you are not elected, answer, but I am coming.

Satan, I am coming.

And that I could not be, but that the Father draws me, and I am coming to such a Lord Jesus as will in no wise cast me out.

Isn't that the mark of a Christian?

It's not perfection, it's direction.

Are you coming?

Are you coming?

But you might object.

Dan, you don't know my sin.

You don't know how bad.

That's God.

Pornography.

The lying.

The drinking.

The anger.

My family hates me.

I hate myself.

Nobody wants me.

Jesus couldn't possibly want a filthy down and out like me.

Fred.

You're exactly the one that he wants.

Healthy don't need a doctor.

Only those who know they're sick.

Do you know that you're sick?

Would you go to him?

Take all of your sin and lay it on him.

And you know what you'll find?

Jesus says, rest.

Rest.

Look at what he'll give you.

He says, I will give you rest, or later on you will find rest for your souls.

He's quoting Jeremiah 6, 16.

What is this rest?

Well, the whole Bible really has this massive quest for what is rest.

It starts all the way back in Genesis 5.

There's a guy named Lamech and he names his son Noah.

You know what Noah means?

Rest.

He thought maybe this would be the guy who would bring us rest.

And then there was a flood.

That didn't work out.

Then there was the Sabbath day.

Maybe that'll work.

No.

Promised land?

David, Solomon, all the other kings, the law?

Will this bring us rest?

None of it does.

And then the author of Hebrews says, there still remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

Who is it?

Where is it?

Jesus tells us.

It's him.

I'll give you rest.

Jesus doesn't just mean rest here as in final salvation, though I think he probably does include that.

The end where every tear is wiped away and all is made right by God.

He means rest right now.

Today.

Not painlessness, not sinlessness, but rest.

Real rest.

Freedom from a guilty conscience.

No more fruitless work.

The joy of confident trust in God.

An anchor in the storm.

How is it that Jesus can promise something like this?

This is astounding.

How could he promise that?

The answer is the cross.

Isaiah 53.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Jesus bore burdens on the cross.

He bore the restlessness that you face on the cross, such that the cross becomes a pillow for the weary saint on which to rest his head.

Jesus is the curse-reversing, burden-bearing, crucified Savior, in whose perfect life, atoning death, and glorious resurrection there is available to you today, friend.

Rest.

You say, what does that look like?

Well, there's a couple examples.

George Whitfield, who is a famous preacher, when he was 21, was converted, and he said this, quote, God was pleased at length to remove the heavy load, and with what joy, joy unspeakable, even joy that was full of and big with glory, was my soul filled when the weight of sin went off.

Today it looks like a high school student just craves approval from his friends, never finds it.

Finally turning through the face of Jesus to see the smiling face of a father who loves him.

It looks like a businessman who's been working his whole life and he doesn't even know why anymore.

What's the point of all of it?

And then he looks to Jesus and he sees the point for which the entire universe was made, the glory of this glorious son.

It looks like a housewife who is just beaten down and tired, who finally finds the one who knows her more than anyone else has ever known her and has healing in his hand.

It looks like binding up the wounds of those who are suffering.

Giving them rest.

Have you laid your burdens on Christ at the cross?

Have you taken your sin to him and left it at the foot of the cross?

Can you say with the hymn writer, My sin?

Oh the bliss of this glorious thought that my sin, not just a part of it, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more?

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul.

You say that.

Jesus wants to bear your burden, friend.

He wants you to come to him and lay down your sickness and your sin at his feet to find rest.

But you need to see that Jesus does not give you an inactive rest.

Look at verse 29.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart.

Jesus here is probably not using the picture of like the double yoke that would put on an oxen.

It's probably the human yoke that people would just use to help them carry heavier burdens.

But also, probably, he's using this idiomatically.

Rabbis in his day would say if someone's following after them, becoming their disciple, they would take the yoke of that rabbi upon them.

So that's probably what he's talking about here, especially because the next verb that he uses is learn from me.

And learn is the same word that we get disciple from.

So what Jesus is saying is, I want you to come and be my disciple.

You say, Well, that doesn't sound like rest, that sounds all like work.

Look at what he says next, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.

It is no work to serve a master who is so sweet, who is so giving, who gives you everything you need for the task at hand.

It is no burden to serve Jesus, because as John says in 1 John 5 3, his commandments are not burdensome.

You remember the gentleness of Jesus with his disciples?

Yep, Peter, who's going to deny him three times.

And beforehand, Jesus says, You know what, Peter, I prayed for you.

That your faith wouldn't fail.

And then after he dies and is resurrected, you remember they meet again having breakfast.

Peter's probably like, man, here it comes.

You know what Jesus says?

Peter, do you love me?

Here's a job.

Feed my sheep.

So gentle.

So humble, so lowly.

It is no work to serve a master like that.

Only joy.

Friend, when you sin, how gentle is Jesus in convicting you, in showing you the error of your way and bringing you back to himself.

So gentle.

He's not like the Pharisees who say, You sinned?

Alright, you gotta pay for that.

You gotta do some work to make up for that.

Ten hell berries.

Do some penance.

More work, more burdens.

No, it's not Jesus.

Jesus says, I take all the burdens.

I lift them and I'll carry you.

What a glorious Savior.

But then he beckons again and he says, verse 30, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Easy just means good, high quality, well suited, light means weightless, fleeting, unconcerning.

J.C.

Ryle said it this way.

His yoke is no more a burden than the feathers are to a bird.

That's why David Livingston, who is a missionary to Africa in the 1800s, who had spent decades on the mission field pouring his life out for the cause of Christ, could say famously, I never made a sacrifice.

A life lived in sold-out service as a disciple of Jesus is only ever gain, no matter what happens to you.

Persecution, ridicule, Jesus says, easy yoke.

Sickness?

Cancer?

He says, Let me lift that burden for you.

What's the worst that could happen to you?

Death?

Well, to live is Christ, and to die is.

Yeah.

Friend, rest in Christ might look like a prison camp.

Might look like martyrdom.

It has, for Christians, looked like shipwreck, hardship, suffering.

For you and I, it will certainly look like denying ourselves daily and taking up our cross and following him, calling others to Christ.

Whatever it looks like, though, you have the highest prize.

You get Jesus himself.

And in him you find rest.

Friend, do you see in Jesus beckoning and wooing how clear it is that he wants you.

He wants you to be humbled.

He wants you to see God and fall on your face before him so that you can, for the first time in your life, hear this invitation as sweet and wonderful when he says, Come to me and find rest.

Friend, maybe you're here this morning and you've never known that rest.

I don't know your life.

I don't know what's happened, what brought you here.

But Jesus, right now, today, is calling to you.

He wants you.

And he is saying, come to me.

Why would you put this off any longer?

What are you holding on to that is so precious?

It's only weighing you down.

Jesus wants to lift that burden.

He wants you to come to him.

He is pleading with you to come to him, to flee from the wrath to come, but instead to find a gentle and a merciful Savior.

Would you come to Him?

Would you lay down your burdens, lay down your sin, and find Jesus to be everything for you?

And believer, if you've been walking with the Lord some years and today you find yourself just weary, you know where to go.

Go to him.

Go to him with all your heartache, with all your pain.

He can take it.

And he will lead you with such a gentle hand.

And you will find rest.

Point is, friends, you do not need to leave here heavy-hearted this morning.

I feel this world is broken.

But Jesus is offering rest.

He is offering satisfaction like you've never known.

This is Jesus, the good shepherd, the tender master, the son of God who lived and who died in order to offer to you eternal rest.

So, friend, would you come to him today?

Would you come to him and find that rest?

Find him to be so sweet.

Would you come to him?

When he says, Come.

Come.

Come.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father.

Please pray.

Use your word and your spirit to give new life to many in here today who do not know you.

Please, Father, would you humble each of us?

Make us to see how precious Jesus is.

Father, would you bind up our wounds?

Would you lead us to the cross, past the empty tomb, to our Savior who even now lives and intercedes for us?

Would you give us rest in him?

We pray all these things in your son's name.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuelbible.church.

If you're not a member of the local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Manuel.

I'd love to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now we God bless you this week if you speak to us constantly.

Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel fully.