All right, spoiler alert today, I'm going to tell you the ending of where we're gonna land today. So our passage is a pretty familiar passage, at least the ending is, and that's where I wanna start today. It's a grace-saturated invitation at the end of this passage that's equally well-known, and it's the words of Jesus where he says this. Come to me, all who labor and who 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. So that's where we're headed. We're gonna take time at the end to unpack those verses and to try to understand them. It's an amazing invitation of Jesus to come to him, and we need to understand why he's saying that in the context in which it's given. But for now, let's just observe. It's a beautiful invitation that I think resonates with our souls. At least it does mine. I know, again, it is a really gracious invitation that Jesus gives there, yet why do I share these last words with you? Well, I share them with you because the path to get to them this morning is a difficult path. You may not realize in the context of Matthew 11 what Jesus says prior to those words, and the path is something that I think we don't like to talk about. What's this path that I'm speaking of? Well, it's the path of judgment. If there's something we don't like to hear and that doesn't get preached very often in churches today It's the topic of judgment of God's coming judgments. That is sure to come and So because God's judgment will come upon men. I think we just like to almost pretend like we tune it out or we don't want to acknowledge that fact and In fact, as we will talk more today, I think many people would rather live in ignorance rather than accept that God's judgment is sure to come the moment they take their last breath on this earth. Even so, we'll find that it is something that Jesus warns us about in this passage as he does elsewhere in the New Testament. So as we begin, let me encourage you with this. This is why I shared the end with you. Stick with me. It's gonna be easy probably for you to let your mind wander as we're hearing about God's judgment upon men or to think about other things, but do your best to stick with me because where we're headed is to see this amazing invitation that Jesus gives. With this said, I would invite you to stand if you're able, and I'm gonna read God's word for us this morning, Matthew 11, verses 16 to 30. If you're not able to stand, just stay right where you are. The word of the Lord says this, But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates. We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he has a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. 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 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. May God bless the reading of his word. You may be seated. So just to refresh your memory, or in case you weren't here last week, we began the beginning of Matthew chapter 11. And in those verses we saw that John the Baptist, who was the cousin of Jesus, and had announced that Jesus was the Messiah to come, found himself in prison, and he had a question. So he sends this question with his disciples, and the question is this of Jesus. Are you the one who's to come, or should we wait for another? And we talked last week how that's a startling question given who it comes from. That John the Baptist had announced Jesus was the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world, and yet here he is asking, Jesus, are you really the Messiah? Or is there still another to come? And then do you remember how Jesus responded to John the Baptist? What did he say essentially? John, it's in the book. Go read the scriptures, be reminded about who I am. The prophet Isaiah, he says that the blind will receive sight, the lame will walk, the deaf will hear, and even the dead will be raised to life. Go tell John these things, knowing that John the Baptist surely had heard about the deeds of Christ already at that point, that those were all the things that Jesus was doing. And so even though John the Baptist questioned Jesus, we looked last week at the fact that Jesus didn't question who John was. He never wavered in seeing who John was. He, in fact, told the crowd then that John had a unique role a role unlike any other given to any person in human history. His role was to announce the Messiah's arrival. He was to be the forerunner of the Messiah and tell everyone about who he was. And so even though John is having these questions about Jesus, Jesus never wavers in his view of who John is. In fact, Jesus even clarifies for us the Old Testament. He says, for those that have ears to hear, John is the Elijah to come. He's the John that Malachi talked about, that was sure to come. And that's essentially where we left off last week, and where our passage begins today. So let's make some observations of what I've read to you, and we're just gonna take time to try to unpack what we read. Now, we believe this is the word of God, and if it's the word of God, that we should know it. We should desire to understand it in our lives, and as we understand it better, that it would then overflow into how we live our lives. So let's make some observations first. I've titled today's message, Come to Jesus. It's an amazing invitation and that's where we're headed. But the first thing is, let's see a rebuke of those who refuse to be pleased. Those first few verses that I read are all about this idea. Now this is my wording, but Jesus likens this generation of his day to spoiled rotten brat children. Those are my words, spoiled rotten brat children. Right, and thinking about what his generation was like, this is what he likened them to. They were like children who refused to play when they did not get their own way. That's a harsh statement about a generation, right? You guys are like a bunch of spoiled rotten brats that refuse to play if you don't get your own way. And he illustrates that with an interesting little parable of sorts. He says, they refused to dance when the flute was played. Now, you got to understand a little bit about Jewish culture at this point to understand what's that all about? Well, Jews would celebrate as they would celebrate things such as weddings or other notable things in their culture, they would play a flute. and people would dance. In fact, if you go to Israel today, you still find many Jews that will dance. Jews always take opportunities to dance. And so Jesus is saying, this generation, when the flute is played, when it's time to celebrate, like at a wedding, they sit there. Again, my words, but arms crossed, just refusing to participate in the celebration. But they also refused to mourn when the songs of lament were played. I think the ESB called it a dirge. That's a song of lament, such as at funerals when there was time of lamenting, they would also just sit there, arms folded. refusing to participate. In other words, there was no pleasing these kids, no matter what was played. Whether you had a celebration, or you had an opportunity to mourn, or anything in between, basically, Jesus is saying, this generation just refuses to participate. And that's what he's likening. these people too. But Jesus goes even further in verses 18 and 19 to clarify what he has in mind and to show additional proof of how his generation refused to be pleased. And he says that can be seen even in how they viewed John the Baptist and Jesus himself. John the Baptist, as you might remember from our previous study in the book of Matthew, lived a life of aestheticism where he ate only locust and wild honey and spent much time fasting and living according to the law, the Old Testament law of his day. Yet even in so doing, people found a way to complain about him and claim that his lifestyle was fanatical. so much so that people accused him of being demon-possessed. You can't be that intense, John. You can't really live these things out in that way. There's gotta be another explanation for it. You must be demon-possessed. On the other hand, Jesus did not fast, especially as the Pharisees did, at least, and he ate with tax collectors and sinners. And even so, people accused him of being a glutton and a drunkard. If you put John the Baptist and Jesus on a scale, they were at opposite ends in terms of their lifestyles and in terms of how they operated. John was very devout, and Jesus was as well, obviously, but in terms of just how he operated, he ate with tax collectors and sinners, something John the Baptist would never dream of doing. And so they're on these scales, much like celebrating and mourning would be on a scale. And Jesus says, you're like this generation because you refuse to accept either one of us. You find issues with me and the way that I eat with tax collectors and sinners, and you find issues with John the Baptist. You call me a glutton and a drunkard, and you call John the Baptist demon-possessed. There's no pleasing you. What I love about this, though, is what was meant to be a criticism of Jesus actually becomes a beautiful statement. Think about it. He was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. About this, F.F. Bruce once said, a malicious nickname at first is now a name of honor, the sinner's lover. Jesus was far from a glutton and a drunkard. In Jesus's friendly approach, he was thought to be scandalous. Therefore, in both John the Baptist and Jesus, people found reason to refuse to be pleased and rejected who they claimed to be. Thus, Jesus' playful little parable of the children who refused to play when they did not get their way in verse 16, plays out in those of their generation who found reason to reject both John the Baptist and Jesus, yet for different reasons. In verse 19, however, Jesus states, wisdom is justified by her deeds. I take this to mean that God's wisdom would be justified or vindicated by the righteous fruit of both John the Baptist's life and ministry and Jesus's life and ministry. In other words, the proof's in the pudding. Look at our lives, look at what they've produced, and see if that's the work of a demon-possessed man and the work of a drunkard and a glutton. Wisdom is justified by our deeds. That is, people would see in the deeds of John the Baptist and Jesus that they should have been pleased and satisfied to see Jesus as their Messiah and John the Baptist as the one who is going to announce the Messiah's arrival. This morning, I'm not going to save all of our application until the end. I'm going to give you points as we go along. And so with each point that we look at, each observation, we're going to have a point of application. And these points of application are meant to cause us to say, why does this matter? Why should we care about a rebuke of those who refuse to be pleased? How does this affect our lives? Well, I'm gonna say it this way to you. We need to check our hearts and minds often, especially in spiritual matters. People found reasons to be dissatisfied with both John the Baptist and Jesus. When it comes to spiritual matters, I think we can become critical and have critical hearts and minds too. Sadly in our day, we can almost always find someone who agrees with our dissatisfaction. Now hear me clearly on this. I'm not saying that we should not check and examine the spiritual things we hear. We should. Yet often I think we can be like the generation in Jesus' day. We can be those who refuse to be pleased. Complaint or a critical spirit is often a disposition of the heart. It's a much deeper issue than we allow ourselves to believe because it begins in the heart. Considering this, we need to check our hearts and our minds when it comes to spiritual matters, and especially the truths of scripture. We need to guard against having a critical spirit that causes us to refuse to be pleased or to accept spiritual truth, the spiritual truth found in the word of God. This was a problem with the generation in Jesus's day. They found reasons to complain about both John the Baptist and Jesus, and they found reasons to reject them. If we're not careful, we can fall into this same trap. Many in our generation do. Refusing to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Refusing to believe that there is a judgment to come. And we can find people who support us in that. Don't worry about God's judgment. That's just something those Christians believe in. It's not really gonna happen. Live for today. Do what makes you happy. Don't think about tomorrow. Those would be the mantras of our day. We'll look at that again. But let me make this even more practical for us today. Because Complaint is a disposition of the heart. I think it's easy for us to identify problems. Many of us have no problem identifying problems all around us. We see issues or problems in every person, in every situation, in everything that's happening around us. But let me just encourage you with this. It's much more difficult to be a person who finds solutions to problems. We're good at complaining about all kinds of things around us, whether it's politics, whether it's the way this person operates, or this family member, or this friend, or the list goes on and on and on. And if we're not careful, we can become people who are complainers about everything, like the spoiled children in Jesus' parable. Instead, check your hearts and minds when it comes to spiritual matters, and be a person who finds solutions to complaints. Be a person who looks for truth, Be a person who in Jesus's day would have accepted and appreciated both John the Baptist and Jesus. A critical spirit in spiritual things can be an obstacle for us to overcome. Don't allow yourself to be a person who refuses to be pleased with the things of God. Hide his word and his truth deep in the depths of your hearts and meditate on his truths often. Next, let's look and see a rebuke of those who refuse to repent. That's verses 20 to 24. Now, verse 20 tells us something we've already been observing in Matthew's gospel. Most of Jesus's mighty works took place in cities around the Sea of Galilee. And three such cities are mentioned in this section, Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Crippernum. Now, I wanna point something out to you about this just generally speaking before we deal with some of the specifics in this section. So someone help me out here and tell me again, where do we read in the gospels about the mighty works that Jesus does in Chorazin? Where is that? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. No, let me help you. It's not there. We don't read about any mighty works that happen in Chorazin. Okay, well that's interesting. How about Bethsaida? Where Philip and Peter and Andrew, the disciples are from. Where do we read about mighty works there? Well, in the case of Bethsaida, there is a little bit of biblical data, such as is found in Mark 8, 22 to 26, where Jesus heals a blind man there. Again, Mark 8, 22 to 26, you can go look at it some other time. There's a little bit about Bethsaida, but that's basically it. So how could Matthew claim that most of Jesus' mighty works had been done in these cities? How's that possible? Well, we must remember what John wrote in his gospel. In John 21, 25, when he said, now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Jesus did more in these towns than the gospel writers record. Much of the same works that we're reading about that he does in Capernaum and other areas around Galilee, he also did in Chorazin and Bethsaida. They're just not recorded for us in the gospel. So keep this in mind. Now, I'm gonna tell you right here, I'm starting to get to the point where you might be tempted to tune me out. But let me just encourage you again to try to stick with me through this section and fight the temptation to wander off, at least in your minds. In the Bible, there are two basic types of oracles, or divine messages, that we find. The prophets, as you think about the prophets, were given these divine messages to deliver to the people. But in scripture, we find two types, positive oracles, or divine messages, and negative oracles, or messages. And they're fairly easy to spot in the New Testament, specifically in the gospel. For the most part, positive oracles in the New Testament are indicated by the words, blessed, like we saw in the Beatitudes. And even last week in verse six, blessed are those. That's a positive oracle, it's a positive divine message. Conversely, the negative oracles are generally indicated by the words, woe to you. When you see those words, they're words that a negative divine message is about to come. And Jesus delivers this type of oracle, this negative type, to some of these specific cities. In future weeks, we're gonna see where he gives these woes to the Pharisees later in Matthew's gospel. But for now, he's targeting these statements at these particular cities. In our passage, he says specifically in verse 21, woe to you, Chorazin, Woe to you, Bethsaida, for if my mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. What's this all about? Why does he say that? And what does he even mean by all of that? Well, do you remember when I told you last week that one of the reasons that John the Baptist was questioning Jesus's true identity was because in his mind, at least what he was hearing as he was in prison, was that he wasn't seeing Jesus call people to repentance. John's message was a message of repentance. Turn because God's judgment is going to come upon you. And he's hearing about all these deeds that Jesus is doing of ministering to the poor of their day, of healing these people with different ailments. But where does all that judgment stuff fit in? Well, here we get an example of Jesus preaching repentance. More specifically, Jesus is comparing the effects of his mighty works and what that effect would have had on Tyre and Sidon as compared to Chorazin and Bethsaida. Chorazin and Bethsaida are little cities around the Sea of Galilee. But at this point, we need to do a little review to remind ourselves what it is that we should know about Tyre and Sidon in order to make this comparison. Do you remember the towns of Tyre and Sidon? Tyre and Sidon were Gentile Phoenician cities that were often the object of condemnation by the Old Testament prophets because they were known for their worship of Baal and their arrogant materialism. We even see in the Old Testament that these cities and the people that lived in these cities were cities and people that God commanded the Israelites to destroy when they went into the promised land. And the Israelites failed to do so. And it caused them many issues for generations because they failed to do that. So at least with this in mind, that little bit about Tyre and Sidon, let's look again at what Jesus says. Even on these pagan, Gentile cities, the effect of his mighty works, would have produced repentance to the point of mourning. They would be in sackcloth and ashes ripping their clothes and repenting for their deeds if they saw the works that Jesus was doing in Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida. And yet, That's not what happened in Chorazin and Bethsaida. How did they respond? Well, their response to Jesus wasn't that they were hostile against Him. They didn't attack Him. You know what their sin was? Their sin was the sin of indifference or apathy towards Jesus, which kept them from responding in repentance. They were indifferent or apathetic towards Jesus and the deeds they saw him perform, these mighty works. Perhaps they even said something like, Jesus can't be the Messiah. He's one of us. They looked at his works of healing those that he healed, and they just explained them away without responding in repentance. Now, again, there are a few topics in Scripture that don't get talked about, in my opinion, often enough today in churches. Notice what Jesus says in verse 22 again, as he says, The first thing we don't talk about often enough is that there is a real judgment to come. When we take our last breath on this earth, we will face the judgment of a holy, righteous, and just God. Yet, so many in our day try to callous their hearts to this reality. They try to convince themselves that they should just, again, live for today. And they try to sear their consciences into believing that they won't face a holy God in judgment. Again, maybe the mantra of our day is live for today. Do what makes you happy and feels good to you. Don't worry about what's to come. Friends, there is a real judgment to come. You can try to convince yourself all you want that this will not happen, but what will you do when you find out someday that it is what happens? And there's only one hope that Scripture speaks to about why we might face that day, that judgment day someday, with any hope at all. Do you know what that hope is? It is that we won't have to give an account for our sins because we've trusted in Jesus to be our Savior. and we will be imputed His righteousness, His perfection will be given to us, in other words, instead of our own, so that as we stand before a holy God, He will see us just as He sees Jesus, perfectly innocent of our sins. That's our only hope of escaping God's righteous judgment for our sins. Short of Jesus, we will give our own account for our sins. So I share this truth with you in love. There is a judgment to come, and the choice is yours whether or not you want to give an account for yourself or to have Jesus be your Savior. But don't fool yourself into believing that there is not a judgment to come. Scripture is clear at that point. If you believe the words of Scripture, you must believe that truth. Yet let's just pretend here for a second that I'm wrong about all of this. If I'm wrong and there's a judgment to come, what have I really lost believing that there is a true judgment ahead? Maybe I've lost participating in some of the pleasures of this world, but that's it. If I think there's a judgment to come and there ends up not being one, then I really haven't lost much. However, if I'm right, and there is a judgment to come, and that judgment is before a holy God, and you haven't trusted in Jesus to be your savior, what do you stand to lose? You stand to lose Jesus's righteousness for yourself, and thus you will give an account for your every deed. In that case, you stand to lose a great deal. Secondly, another aspect we don't talk about enough that Jesus alludes to here and elsewhere is that he seemingly suggests that there are degrees of judgment. We tend to think spending eternity in hell is like a one-size-fits-all type of thing. And by the way, we do the same thing with heaven, don't we? It's a one-size-fits-all. Either we make the cut or we don't. Either we're in or we're not in. Either we trust Jesus and we're there or we don't and we spend eternity in hell. But look closely at what Jesus is saying. He's saying that it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on that day than it will be for the one that has remained indifferent to Jesus and refused to repent. Let that sink in for a second. He's going to say to you, stand over there for a minute while I deal with Tyre and Sidon so you can see how I deal with them. But just know, even as I deal with them, your punishment is going to be worse than what they get. Ouch. People who end up in hell will wish for all eternity that they had committed just one less sin. Jonathan Edwards, the great American preacher, once said it famously like this, the damned in hell would be ready to give the world if they could have the number of their sins to have been one less in this life. there are degrees of punishment a person will face in hell. And the sin of indifference, which leads to a failure to repent, indifference to Jesus is worse than overt rejection and defiance, such as we see in Tyre and Sidon and their pagan worship. Now to illustrate this point even further, Jesus next focuses his attention in a very similar way upon Capernaum. Capernaum was Jesus's home base for much of his earthly ministry. And as such, they had a front row seat to see the mighty works that he did. In fact, many of the miracles we've studied in Matthew's gospel up until this point, many of them have happened in Capernaum or around that area. That was where Peter lived and Jesus lived during his earthly ministry much of that time in Peter's house. And so they have this front row seat to see these mighty works. But in the same way as Chorazin and Bethsaida, they also committed the sin of indifference toward Jesus and didn't repent. Now again, he's painting with broad brush strokes. That doesn't mean every person. But by and large, this is how they responded. So Jesus similarly compares them to Sodom, which was a city that was the epitome of sin. Even so, Jesus says that even Sodom would have repented and remained to this day had they been witness to Jesus's mighty works. If ever there was a city that faced the fire and brimstone of God, it was the city of Sodom. The city used to exist, and now it no longer exists because God completely annihilated it with fire. They experienced all the fire of God, but even they would not have faced this end if they had seen the mighty works of God. And Jesus tells those in Capernaum who had become indifferent to him that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than it would be for them. Wow, that's intense to say the least, which leads to our second application for today. We need to remember that indifference, or you could even write there, refusing to repent to Jesus is worse than open hostility toward Him. Now, phrasing it this way almost makes this seem wrong. In my mind, it does at least. Wait, this is worse? Yet look closely at Jesus' teaching here. He says that the sin of indifference or a lack of repentance of Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum will receive a more severe judgment than the likes of Tyre and Sidon and Sodom. That's quite an intense statement, given the hostility and overt sin of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom. I fear many in our day are not necessarily hostile towards Jesus. Much like Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum, they weren't hostile. Though an argument probably could be made that we're seeing people that are more hostile in our world today than ever before. But for many, they're not hostile to Jesus. They're just largely indifferent to him in the gospel, which keeps them from repenting. This is sobering given Jesus's words in our passage. Friends, we cannot remain indifferent to Jesus. We are either for him or we're against him, but there's no middle ground. If you aren't for Him, then you are against Him, and it's that simple. If you haven't already trusted Jesus to be your Savior, I would implore you to make that decision today. Otherwise, you will stand before God on the judgment day and give an account of your sins before a holy and righteous God. There's this old hymn that talks about the rock of ages cleft for me. If you decide not to accept Jesus as your Savior, and you stand before Him in judgment, you are going to wish that there was a cleft for you to hide in. He is holy and he's righteous and he's gonna deal with sin accordingly. With Jesus, however, his righteousness is credited to your account. Jesus is that cleft. So choose this day how you wanna stand before God on that day. It's not a matter of whether judgment is coming. It's only a matter of how you wanna stand before God in that judgment. So while we've considered a few of these rebukes, let's next look at a praise of those who believe. After giving these warnings, Jesus has this praise for those who believe. Again, it's following this teaching on judgment. And we see in these verses Jesus's extraordinary prayer. We don't have very many recorded prayers of Jesus in scripture, but this is one of those extraordinary prayers where he's talking to God the Father. And in this prayer, he thanks God the Father that he has hidden what Jesus calls these things from the wise and understanding, and yet revealed them to little children. What does he mean by this? What are these things that he's referring to? Well, I take these things to be the message and activities of the kingdom of heaven, which require faith and humility to grasp. It's not the wise of this world who will believe these things, as though they are wise according to the world's standards. because they're often unrepentant and stubbornly refuse to accept the gospel. Instead, Jesus says, it's little children who receive such truth, or those who receive the gospel with simple faith, like children. Jesus then says, it's God's gracious will to do so. I've told you this before about the encouragement that I find in this, but let me state it again here. It is not the wise and most clever who will stumble upon the gospel, but those who have a simple faith to believe. The disciples were not the academic elitist of their day, but uneducated, ordinary men, is what Luke says in Acts about them. But they were uneducated and ordinary men who had been with Jesus. And for me, that's an encouragement. I'm not sure you've ever had this experience, but have you ever come across people who are too smart for their own good, especially when it comes to spiritual matters? I can remember a specific classmate I had in seminary who was incredibly smart. He might've been the smartest, at least one of the top two that I came across in all of seminary. He was so well-read. And yet at the same time, you know what the tragedy was? He would often get in his own way. He couldn't accept some of the simple truths of Scripture. They were always more complicated than they seemed to appear to him. There was always a writer that he had come across that made even some of the most simple things more complicated. He was too smart for his own good and would overthink everything without being able to accept the simplicity of certain basic biblical truths. And by the time that we ended seminary, he had announced that he was leaving the faith. A tragic story, really. Jesus says here, he's not making the truth of the gospel only for the wise. and the smartest of our day. He's made it known to little children. Thankfully, in my case, God did not require the wisest of our day to accept the gospel, but the simple. I'll make this even more practical for you in just a moment as we look at the application under this point. But before we get there, I wanna point out one other thing to you. Look again at verse 27. It 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 whom the son chooses to reveal him. God the Father delegated his authority over all things to God the Son. What does Jesus mean that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son? Well, I think adding just a word here might help clarify this. And again, I'm only adding this word for the sake of our understanding, not arguing that it should be added into the biblical text. But listen to how it sounds by adding in this word a few times. It's the word fully. So it would read something like this. No one fully knows the son except the father. And no one fully knows the father except the son. There's an exclusivity to their relationship that those outside of it, like us, will never fully know. In other words, the Trinity knows one another directly and immediately because of their unique relationship within the Trinity. Still further though, only those whom the Son chooses can know the Father. The Son must reveal this truth to others in order for them to know the Father. That is, only those who have been regenerated by Jesus can know the Father, and the Son justly chooses whom that will be. You might look and say, well, that's not fair. The Son is just. It is well within His right as the sovereign God to choose whom that will be. This is part of the mysterious, at least to us, work of Jesus. People must have their spiritual blinders removed from their eyes and their spiritual hearts brought to life to see God as He truly is. And this is the work of the Son, is what Jesus teaches us here. So what application can we draw from this? Well, application number three, state it like this. We cannot earn our way into eternity. In other words, this is the work of Jesus. He has to regenerate hearts. Paul says this so well in Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. Many of you have it memorized. I have it memorized from my days in Awana. It's for by grace you've been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it's the gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast. Or I can come in to you again, one of my favorite quotes, another Jonathan Edwards quote to you here. He says it this way, you contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. Charles Spurgeon, who Ryan quoted earlier, he sent me this quote from Spurgeon this week as well, and it fits so perfectly here. He says, salvation is not a mixture of your things in Christ. It is just the blood of Jesus Christ. If it was about earning our way into heaven or smarting our way into heaven, then many of us would fail miserably. Thankfully, salvation is a gift that's received, not something that is earned. If it's earned, then it is no longer a gift, but Paul clearly teaches in Ephesians 2 that it is a gift from God. It's about accepting it, not earning it. So perhaps my encouragement to some of you here is just this. Stop trying to earn your salvation. Stop trying to earn your way into heaven. It's an exhausting pursuit. But instead, simply receive the gift of salvation that Jesus makes known to us. Finally, let's look at this point, Jesus's invitation. This is what I began with this morning so that hopefully you would stick with me to see this spectacular invitation that Jesus gives. It's the invitation to trust him personally. This goes well beyond simply knowing facts about him, but it is to trust in him. It's the difference between knowing a chair, let's just take this chair right here, that I can believe, I can have the facts that say, okay, that chair is gonna hold my weight. I know this, I've sat in all of these chairs many times, I know that if I sit in that chair, it will hold my weight. Now I can say I believe it will hold me, but I don't demonstrate faith or trust in it until when? I sit in it. So it's not just knowing facts about the chair. It's not just knowing facts about Jesus. It's about knowing him personally. It's about putting my trust, my faith in him alone for my salvation. Jesus' call here in verse 28, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, is an exclusive call. He's the only way to the Father. Jesus gently calls those who are weary and burdened to himself. Many scholars here understand labor to be those burdens we put on ourselves and to try to carry on our own. Many of those are, I think, related to our sin, and they understand heavy laden to be burdens placed on us by another such as a religious system. In Jesus's day, the scribes and the Pharisees were placing enormous demands on people in order to live according to their understanding of the law. But Jesus's call here is the call to come to Jesus himself as he welcomes the fatigued. and those who have tried to earn their part, and he offers gracious hope to all who come to him. One commentator said it this way, Jesus's invitation confronted the burdensome system of external obedience that had been imposed on the people by Jewish tradition. The religious leaders demanded obedience to external regulations, placing an excessive burden on the people that they themselves were not. willing to bear. Jesus invited his hearers to trust in him and rely on God's grace. And the quote ends, but with this line, no amount of hard work is ever enough to earn salvation. Only Jesus can remove our burden of guilt. Amen? It gets even better. As Jesus offers a promise to those who come to him, one pastor said it this way, are you caught on the endless treadmill of work and weariness? Careers, family duties, church, and social commitments become drudgery when trying to earn approval, either from God or from people. To all burdened by sin, he says, or by trying to earn God's favor, Christ promises the only lasting, soul-fulfilling rest that can be found. Anything we attempt to carry on our own becomes a burden. The answer to weariness is always the same. Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. Finally, in verses 29 and 30, Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. 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. When you think about a yoke, I mean Y-O-K-E yoke and not Y-O-L-K yoke, but when you think about a yoke, what comes to mind? When I think about a yoke, oxen come to my mind. Before tractor engines, farmers would use teams of oxen to plow their fields, as was the case in Jesus's day. And so they would yoke together a team of oxen. It would make the work more manageable, as a farmer would use a yoke to join them together so that they could share the burden and work together. but an ill-fitting yoke would rub against an oxen's neck and cause more trouble. And notice what Jesus says here in our passage. He says, take my yoke upon you. He's not talking about a yoke used to join animals together, but he's talking about a human yoke. In our world, at least here in America, human yokes are unheard of. By and large, maybe the Amish still use them. But for the most part, we don't see people carrying human yokes around. Yet you've probably seen in history books, or now you're seeing it on the screen, pictures like this of other cultures where they had to haul heavy things, such as large jugs of water long distances. To make this burden more bearable, a human yoke was used to distribute the weight more evenly and to make it more manageable. In a similar way, Jesus is inviting His followers to take His yoke upon them and to learn from Him. and he states he is gentle and lowly in heart, and in so doing, there will be rest for souls. By this, I don't think he's lessening the demands of following him. As we've talked previously, discipleship is costly, but he's saying to use his yoke and to learn from him because his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Have you ever had this experience? Where maybe you're a novice at doing some kind of job, and you don't have a very good tool to accomplish the task. But then you ask someone who's a professional at that job, and they give you a better tool than what you have. And as they give you the better tool, it makes all the difference in getting that job done. I know I've had that experience many times. Somebody's like, here, you need this. This is what it takes to get that job done. It doesn't change the job per se, but it makes the job that much easier. That's what Jesus is offering here. Learning from Him and following Him doesn't lessen the cost of discipleship. And following Him, but by taking His yoke upon us, it makes all the difference to accomplish this difficult task of following Him. His yoke is the better tool in my example. and he's contrasting his way and the gospel to the Jewish religious leaders who were heaping up external demands and burdens on people to the point of exhaustion. His way, using His yoke, is all about grace. It's not about following a belief system or a code of behavior, but it's about knowing God and having a relationship with Him through Jesus. It's the difference between believing I must be doing something to earn God's favor versus simply believing in what has been done by Jesus and what He's accomplished on my behalf that I could never do on my own. The difference removes enormous burdens from our lives and leads to our last point of application. It's simply the invitation. Come to Jesus. Are you laboring and working to try to earn your salvation or to please a righteous and holy God? No amount of work can ever please a perfect God unless your work is perfect. Yet all of us have the same problem as all humanity always has. We're not perfect and therefore cannot satisfy the demands of a perfect God. Instead, we must throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus and come to Him and trust Him alone for salvation. We must trust He satisfied the mark of perfection that you and I never could. By placing his yoke upon us, we find true rest for our souls, as we no longer feel the need to work for the approval of God, our man. Have you come to him? If not, that's your starting point. If you have, how are you tempted to forget this and enter back into the rat race of trying to win the approval of others? Perhaps we simply need to be reminded of this incredible call again, not for salvation, but for sanctification. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I leave you with this quote from one commentator as I close. He wrote it this way. Jesus offers the unforced rhythms of God's grace to those who forsake self-effort and live as they were created to live. Submission to Jesus brings rest to weary souls. Are you ready to find rest? Come to Jesus anew in your life and find the rest that only he offers. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this amazing invitation that we have just looked at. The invitation of Jesus himself to come to him. Lord, I would imagine in a room like this, there are people who have yet to come to Jesus to place their salvation in. As such, they will meet you in judgment, and they will give an account for not living according to your ways in this life. But Lord, the invitation is here for them to put their trust in Jesus so that His account, His perfect account, might be attributed to us. Lord, for the person that's here that has yet to place their faith in You, if you're moving in their hearts right now, Lord, would they just cry out to You? Would they say, I trust You, Jesus, to be my Savior? And then would they commit to following you in their lives? Father, for those of us who have trusted in Jesus as our Savior, it's not something we need to do again. And yet, life has a way of throwing us back into the rat race of trying to earn a part of our salvation, or thinking that our actions can please you in some ways. Father, for the one that has been trying and trying and trying, but they have souls who are tired and exhausted, I pray that they would come to you anew and find the rest for their soul that they so long for that can only be found in Jesus. Thank you for Jesus's gracious works. that He's willing to give to us. Would we trust in that alone in our lives? Lord, continue to speak to our hearts and our minds as we get ready to sing this song to close. Pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.