Come to me…

Rev Gideon Lee

Matthew 11:28-30

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

When I read this passage a few stands up to me.

He says come to me all those who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Jesus said I will. Not try but I will. And he said my yoke is easy, which is strange because a yoke is normally burdensome. And he said you'll learn for me. I don't know how we can learn from it. How can a burden be easy and a yoke is light?

There is three parts to my sermon.

1. Refreshment
2. Relationship
3. Restoration

I want to start by telling you a story. There was a father who worked very hard. And he has an energetic son and he wanted the father to play with him. So the father have to think of how to entertain his son.

After a long day at the office and he came home, the son was waiting for the father to play with him. He didn't have time to plan on what to play with the son. He had a newspaper in his hand so he cut up the newspaper into small pieces to form a jigsaw puzzle. So he thought it'll keep the son occupied.

He went to get himself a cup of coffee and the son ran in and said "dad it's finished!". And true enough it was and properly pasted too. The father asked the son how he did it so fast? The son said oh, I didn't look at the difficulty of the puzzle because behind was a picture of a man and it was easy to put him together. So if the man is correct the other side would also be correct.

Refreshment

Jesus said come. Some say it's a welcoming invitation but actually it was a command. Jesus said come and the next word is to. In the Greek it means to look towards or facing. Come and face him. Looking towards him and giving him your full attention.

When you call your children to come, it's a command. I expect them to response. Sometimes they are slow, maybe because they are looking at the television.

Jesus is saying to come towards him and give him your attention. If you are weary or tired, Jesus is commanding you to come. There is no other way to sooth your soul.

When there's a problem, the world takes you to another problem. Like those Korean dramas, when they break up with someone, they run to the pub and drown their sorrows. Do you see them going to a church? Jesus is saying come to me and look at me. And Jesus qualifies the call. He said all. And the last time I checked my Bible, all means all.

Who are these all? All who are weary or weighed down. Jesus said don't wait, come to him.

Isaiah 55:1-3

Invitation to the Thirsty

1 “Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

2 Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and you will delight in the richest of fare.

3 Give ear and come to me;

listen, that you may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

my faithful love promised to David.

CS Lewis says God whispers to us in our pleasures and shout at us in our pain.

He wants to provide comfort. What he wants to do is to provide you with the rest that you need. He will turn your mourning into laughter and sorrow into joy. Exchange it for your rest. Only he can provide that for you. He ask you to come and has the full power to give you rest.

He says I WILL give you rest. Not maybe. Sometimes we don't admit that we have a burden. We seem to love our burdens too much. How we come to church and we leave our burdens at the door and come in to worship God. But the problem is when we leave we pick up our problems again. I say we should nail our burden at the cross so that it no longer goes with us.

Nowadays I see school children carry such big bags. And I see Josiah carry such a big bag that's even bigger than him. We don't have to carry that burden. 

Our young adult cells learnt about what bitterness can do. From the life of Joseph. He could have been so depressed or be full of bitterness but God is asking us to forgo that.

Relationship

This is the picture of a yolk. The central point of v29 is about relationships. He said learn from me. I am not talking about an egg yolk. It's to put on an animal of burden. Here it'll be the water buffalo. It's made from hard wood so that it's heavy enough as a restrain on a water buffalo.

The buffalo is tough and muscular so it has to be heavy to direct the water buffalo. The yolk is not made for one buffalo but made for a pair. So you are one of the buffalo and the other is Jesus. The farmer would put an older buffalo on one and put an inexperienced buffalo on the other so that it can learn from the older buffalo.

You don't have to do it alone. It will require teamwork. You and Jesus will get through it. Jesus said take my yolk. As I do that, the problem becomes Jesus' problem. He carries us. But we need to work together as a team. The Greek word is also used in the word baton. He shoulders our burden with us and if you remember Jacob and the ladder and how he wrestled with God? God touch his sinew and Jacob had to rely on a crutch to walk. He is then called Israel and he has to rely on God as he relied on the crutch. As he understood it, he said God is the one that blesses him.

It's like wrestling, a tag team. As we walk with him he carries us. You don't have to do this alone. He's there for you so learn to rely on him.

When Jesus say take my yolk, what did Jesus said? He said learn. As we come into a relationship with God and partner with him we need to learn. Learn how he tackles things. This learn is the same word disciple. To learn from inside your heart. Inside here and it requires relationship. I pray that you understand it requires a relationship with him.

My favourite team is Liverpool. You know why, because their tagline is YNWA - You'll Never Walk Alone. With God you'll never walk alone.

Restoration

He wants to restore. We are first refreshed, then we relate with him and is then restored.

Our restoration comes from our salvation in Jesus Christ. He is gentle. He will not turn you away. A gentle and humble God. That word humble is the same word meek. He is compassionate. He wants to help you. That's what we need. To come to someone with our problems and he is understanding. He said you will find rest.

Rest for our souls. The Greek word for rest is different than from verse 28. It's a noun that relates to our eternal state. He's the key to our restoration.

It's a paradox because he says his burden is easy. If it's burdensome then it's burdensome but Jesus says when he's in the picture our burden become light.

Remember the story of the boy? He said is the picture of the man is correct the other side is right. The same if we see the bigger picture and turn to Jesus, all else will be right. All we have to do is to come to Jesus and all is well.

There was a young boy in a family. And the parents bought a corner lot home. So they wanted to clear the house before they move in. So he called his son to go with him to clear the house. The young son was excited that he can spend time with the father.

So they started to clear up and they saw a stone. It's not a very big stone but what was under the stone was big. On the surface it looked small. The father asked the son to go remove the stone but it would not move. So he dig the earth around it and the stone looked bigger and bigger and he just could not move it.

Finally in defeat he went to the father with tears in his eyes and he said he could not move the stone. He used everything he could. The dad said don't worry but the son felt so bad. The father said you didn't use everything at your disposal. The father said you didn't call me.

Both father and son managed to remove the stone. That's the picture of us. We need to just come to him because he's your partner. You don't have to do it on your own.

I pray that all of us here regardless of what you're going through but the key is to learn see things how God sees it. Learn to look to him because he cares for us.