September 6, 2026 | Come to Jesus

This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

You may be seated.

June 24th, I remember that day well.

It was a bit of a strange week.

Our church had four different funerals that week, and I was officiating three of them.

And I remember on that day, I had just finished officiating the second of these four funerals, and I was on my way back to my office when my phone rang and I got a call, and it was from Taylor Hall and Murphy Armstrong officially inviting me to be the rector of St.

Paul's.

And if you had told me three months earlier, back in March, that I would be leaving where I was to take a position at another church, I would not have believed you.

Because Rachel and I, we were, we were very happy.

And our kids were happy and we loved our church.

Back in March, I couldn't really imagine a scenario that would have taken us out of Texas.

But you know what?

Back in March, I didn't know about this church.

And I never never met any of its people, and then and then that all changed.

And I know that you've heard from the vestry and the search committee, and they have said some incredibly kind things about me.

But I want you to know something about the people who have served on these committees.

Every conversation that I had with them, every phone call, every dinner, every meeting over breakfast or coffee, every interaction over three months, and there were quite a lot.

Every single one of those convinced me of two things.

First, that St.

Paul's is a community of people who really are enthusiastic about their church and who really do love one another, and who have committed themselves as much as possible to listen to the voice of their shepherd, Jesus, and to follow where he leads.

And second, that St.

Paul's is a community that I would really, really like to be a part of.

And I can't tell you how thankful Rachel and I are.

Meeting the vestry and the search team made us want to be a part of this church.

And I can't tell you how thankful we are that that wish has come true.

And then it's brought us back home.

This is the first time, y'all.

This is the first time in 15 years that we have lived near family, that we've lived close enough for them to visit.

In fact, some of them are visiting today.

They came to church.

I couldn't keep them away.

And I am so thankful for that, that they could be here.

And I hope you get the chance to meet some of them.

Although I should probably tell you in advance, if they start telling you any stories about me, they're all a bunch of compulsive liars.

And you can't believe a word they say.

In all seriousness, I just want to say that I am I am honored to be here.

I'm so happy to be the rector of St.

Paul's, and I can't wait to see where the Lord is going to take us.

So with that said, I invite you now to please join with me in prayer.

Father, as we were singing, I just thought how true it is.

All my life you have been faithful and you have been so, so good.

And I thank you so much that you gave us the gift of your word because we don't live by bread alone.

We live by every word that proceeds from your mouth.

And I thank you that you promised that when we gather together you were here.

And so I pray, Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit that inspired the words of Scripture, I pray that you would now speak to us, that you would open our ears and open our hearts to hear what you were saying and to respond with gratitude and with trust.

I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

When I found out that I would be the next rector here, a friend, a mentor of mine gave me some great advice.

I had asked him, I said, Do you have any advice for what I should preach on when I first arrived?

Do I just need to preach on one of the assigned lectionary texts?

Should I be doing a series of some kind?

And he said, preach on something that really matters to you.

Help the people of this church know your heart.

Which is great.

But then I stopped and I thought, well, what does really matter to me?

What is the one thing I can't not say?

And then it came to me.

The truth is, there are many things that I consider important.

And there are many things that we should consider important as a church because they're important to our Lord.

But there is one thing above all that continues to grip my heart.

One thing that I believe must be absolutely central to everything that we do at St.

Paul's.

And that one thing is the good news, the great news, the astonishingly good news of God's love for undeserving sinners like me, and the links to which he has gone for our redemption.

And I'm not the first Anglican to think this way, that this ought to be the most important.

When Thomas Cranmer, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who composed the Book of Common Prayer, when he published that first prayer book back in 1549, he designed the liturgies with a specific purpose in mind.

Cranmer wanted to ensure that every time someone prayed or worshipped in an Anglican church, that that person would encounter and experience once again the love of God for sinners and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And one of the ways he did that was by inserting four biblical verses that clearly communicate God's love and mercy for sinners like you and me.

And he placed them right at the center of the liturgy and he called them the comfortable words.

Thomas Cranmer put those words in the middle of the liturgy because he was convinced that what they communicated must be at the center of our life together.

So for these first four Sundays, that's what I'm going to be preaching on.

These four biblical verses, these four comfortable words.

Now I'm going to start this morning with the first of those four verses.

It's the words of Jesus found in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, when he says, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

It's interesting who Jesus addresses this invitation to.

You know, all through the Gospels, we're told stories of all kind of people coming to Jesus.

Crowds flocking to hear him speak or watch him perform miracles, sick people coming to him to be healed, religious leaders coming to him to ask a question or get advice.

But you know, I've noticed something about all these people.

As you read these stories, I've noticed that some of these people come to Jesus and they delight in what they find.

And they walk away from meeting him dancing or rejoicing or just overwhelmingly glad.

Others, however, walk away offended or confused or sometimes even angry.

And once you read enough of these stories, you can start to predict how the people are going to respond because you'll realize there's a pattern.

Those who delight in Jesus are almost always people who come to him out of a sense of desperation.

A father whose son is sick and dying.

A woman who's been bleeding for 12 years and she's just given up on every other kind of treatment.

A tax collector who is so ashamed and so shunned because of what he's done that he doesn't even care about his own dignity anymore.

People like that, they come to Jesus and they walk away glad because they find the rest that their hearts are longing for.

But then there are others.

Religious leaders who think they already have all the answers.

A rich and successful young man who comes to Jesus convinced that he's done everything right.

When people like that meet Jesus, they tend to walk away disappointed and hurt.

And that should tell us something.

Jesus wants us to come to him.

He wants to give us rest, but his invitation is specific.

He doesn't say, notice, he doesn't say, come to me, all who are put together and doing well.

He doesn't say, Come to me, all who have obeyed my commands and done exactly what I have said.

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

Jesus' invitation is not directed at people who are winning at life, or people who have it altogether.

It's directed at people who are broken up, beaten down by life, burdened by the weight of their own failures.

As he himself says elsewhere, it is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick.

But, you know, during my time in ministry, I have listened to and counseled and prayed with enough people to know that you can look as successful and as prosperous as you may be on the outside, and you can still be weary and heavy laden.

And maybe you don't feel that way all the time.

Maybe there are days that you feel that you've got it all together and you really don't need that much from Jesus.

But life has a way of humbling us and teaching us the truth, which is that we're a lot poorer, a lot weaker, a lot more foolish, and a lot more desperate than we'd like to admit.

And that's okay.

Because that need, that poverty of spirit, as Jesus calls it, that sense of desperation is the only qualification that he gives for those whom he calls.

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

And what kind of rest is that?

What is Jesus talking about here?

I think sometimes, I think sometimes as Christians we misunderstand this.

Sometimes we think that as long as we follow Jesus, as long as we trust in him and do what he says, then our life will be smooth sailing, winning all the time, free of heartache and hardship.

It's like that scene from the movie.

You guys remember that movie, What About Bob?

So there's this movie, What About Bob?

And uh the main character in the movie, he's played by Bill Murray, he's got all kinds of problems.

He's agoraphobic and he's claustrophobic and he's germophobic and he's a massive hypochondriac.

He's got so many issues that he just can't function on a daily level unless he sees his therapist every single day.

But then his therapist decides to go on vacation.

And Bob panics.

So he forces himself to get on this bus.

He tracks down his therapist at his family's lake house, and as you can imagine, the therapist, Richard Dreyfuss, he just wants to get rid of Bob.

So he tells Bob, he says, I've got a new treatment for you, I'm gonna write you a prescription.

And he writes this piece of paper and he hands it to him.

And it says, Take a vacation from my problems.

That's the prescription.

And somehow this works.

Bob reads this piece of paper and he just says, Oh, okay, I'm gonna take a vacation from all my fears, all my phobias, all my worry, all my anxiety, everything that's making my life miserable, I'm just gonna stop.

And he does, he's cured.

No more problems.

And sometimes I think that's how we imagine that the Christian life is going to be.

That's what Jesus means when he says he'll give us a rest, that it's just a vacation from our problems, an endless vacation.

But that's not true, is it?

When Jesus offers us rest, he is not saying that he will ensure that we will now never experience disappointment or personal failure or sickness or grief or betrayal.

What he's saying is that if we follow him, if we take his yoke upon us, which means if we take upon ourselves his instruction, his teaching, if we listen to his voice and trust in him, then he will give us a peace that passes understanding.

Then he will take away the shame and guilt and fear that weigh us down, and he will give us a hope that can sustain us no matter how trying or difficult our circumstances may be.

Not just a vacation from our problems, but true and genuine rest for our souls, and that sounds great.

But why should we believe him?

Why should we accept this invitation?

There's so many other things that we could look to to give us rest.

Why should we come to Jesus?

In the next verse, verse 29 of Matthew 11, immediately after the one I quoted, Jesus actually gives us the reason.

Take my yoke upon you, he says, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.

Did you know that this is the only time in all of the Gospels, all 80, 89 chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?

This is the only time that Jesus talks about his heart.

And that should grab your attention.

Because when the Bible talks about someone's heart, it's not just speaking of a part of a person, it is talking about who they are at the very center of their being, the core of their being.

What is it that animates their life?

And who is Jesus at the core of his being?

Who is he at the very center of who he is?

I am gentle and lowly in heart.

And sometimes that's not how we think about Jesus.

Sometimes we think about him and we think about his strict teachings, and we think about his own personal holiness, and we think about his incredible sacrifice, and we think to ourselves, I can't come to Jesus.

He will be so, so terribly disappointed in me.

But that's not who he is.

The New Testament tells us that when Jesus looked upon sinners, he did not look upon them with disappointment.

He looked upon them with compassion.

And when people came to him, even annoying and inconvenient people, even the kind of people that others thought were not worth his time, that others treated with contempt, Jesus didn't reject them, he didn't treat them harshly, he spoke to them with kindness and gentleness and love.

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

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly at heart.

Friends, this is good news.

And this is news worth sharing.

You know, one of the first things that stood out to me back in March when I began to learn about St.

Paul's and read some about this church, one of the first things that stood out to me was our mission statement.

To know Jesus and make him known.

That's our purpose as a church.

And this verse, this comfortable word, this helps us understand why we should know Jesus and why we should want to make him known in the first place.

I'm very happy to be back in the upstate.

It's a great place to be from, and I think it's a wonderful place to live.

But as wonderful as it is, and as great as the people are around here, I know the truth, which is that Greenville is a city filled with weary and heavy laden people.

Wearied by loss and by loneliness, tired from disappointments, things that never happened, that they so desperately wanted, failures of their own, burdened by hidden sorrows and secret sins.

I love how friendly everyone is, but I know that underneath all the smiles lurks a lot of need and a lot of hurt.

And that is why we must never take our eyes off our mission statement to know Jesus and make him known.

The great Sri Lankan evangelist, D.T.

Niles, he once said, evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

You could also say evangelism is just one weary, worn-out soul telling another where to find rest.

Why should we never take our eyes off the goal of knowing Jesus?

Because he is gentle and lowly in heart.

And he and he alone can give us the rest that we want.

And why should we never get distracted from the goal of making him known?

Because we live in a city filled with weary and worn-out people, people whom Jesus looks upon with endless love and compassion.

And because we know we know who can give them rest.

There are many things that I will proclaim from this pulpit in the years to come.

But there is one thing, there is one thing by the grace of God that I will always insist upon and never let us forget.

And that is we serve a Lord who is gentle and lowly in heart, and he so badly wants to give us rest.

And you can always come to Him.

In the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen.