SPEAKER_00: Hello, friends.
SPEAKER_00: This is Pastor Creighton.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.
SPEAKER_00: This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
SPEAKER_00: This is the gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Praise to you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Generous Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, would you let the perfect peace of Christ dwell with us richly?
SPEAKER_00: So the working of your word and your Holy Spirit, give us grace to put on the new self.
SPEAKER_00: This new work that you're doing within us.
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_00: I love this line, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: He's describing the kind of activities that we should expect to see amongst those that God is giving grace to put on the new self.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost a throwaway line, verse 13, bearing with one another.
SPEAKER_00: That's a wonderful thing about being brothers and sisters in Christ is I have people to bear with me.
SPEAKER_00: And you are not without people to bear with you at your best and yes, at your worst.
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't in my sermon notes, that was just improvised.
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever felt allured?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I said it that way.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever felt allured?
SPEAKER_00: Allured?
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm thinking about it.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen a mountain and something deep inside you goes, I gotta climb that?
SPEAKER_00: I've never had that feeling.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Gail.
SPEAKER_00: I've never had that feeling.
SPEAKER_00: Um have you have you walked through a nature trail and been so enticed to see what's around the next bend?
SPEAKER_00: Or have you heard that distant beat and you go, I gotta know where that music's coming from?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever felt allured?
SPEAKER_00: Reformation scholar Ashley Null says that one of the reformers' favorite words with the gospel, words with reference to the gospel, was this word allure.
SPEAKER_00: And he cites uh an example from Martin Luther, who's one of my heroes of the faith, and um, you know, perhaps the figurehead for what we know as the reformation, this renewal and rediscovery of the gospel within the life of the church, you know, 500 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Here's one passage from Luther.
SPEAKER_00: He's describing the activity of God towards the Christian.
SPEAKER_00: He says, when the shepherd finds the lost sheep again, he has no intention of putting it away in anger once more or throwing it to a hungry wolf.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, after this is a sheep that's gone astray.
SPEAKER_00: Who are you, right?
SPEAKER_00: No, he's got no intention to throw that sheep away.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, all his care and concern is directed to alluring it with every possible kindness, treating it with the utmost tenderness.
SPEAKER_00: He takes that lamb upon his own back, lifting it up and carrying it until he brings the animal all the way home again.
SPEAKER_00: Did you catch that word allure?
SPEAKER_00: He allures wayward sheep back into the fold with every possible kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Is that how we would expect a holy and perfect God to act towards wayward sheep?
SPEAKER_00: That's the generosity and grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what entices us and draws us.
SPEAKER_00: It allures us back to Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this understanding the gospel that was caught by the English reformers taking after Luther.
SPEAKER_00: English reformers like Thomas Cranmer, who compiled our Anglican prayer book and it still forms our liturgy that we use today.
SPEAKER_00: As Cranmer was reflecting on this alluring work that God does through his word to draw wayward sheep back to himself with every possible kindness, Cranmer decided to bear witness to this alluring gospel through what came to be known as four comfortable words.
SPEAKER_00: When I think of comfortable, I think of um there was like an ad campaign for TD Bank a while ago.
SPEAKER_00: Banking can be this comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: And I always had that picture of that green lazy boy chair.
SPEAKER_00: For some reason, that's the only thing I comes to mind in all this sermon preparation I do when I think of comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But we probably shouldn't, we probably do well not to think of comfortable in terms of put your feet up and relax.
SPEAKER_00: It's not exactly what's meant, what Kramer was intending here.
SPEAKER_00: Comfortable might might be it's a useful word.
SPEAKER_00: We might want to think in our own modern English, comforting.
SPEAKER_00: These are comforting words for a wayward sheep and wounded sinners.
SPEAKER_00: These are words of relief, of consolation.
SPEAKER_00: These are words that remind us that God's heart is always towards the sinner.
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, these comfortable words, comforting words, I think, ought to be regularly attended to.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to regularly meditate on them and let them seep into our bones and into our marrow.
SPEAKER_00: Because these four words, these four comfortable words, bear witness to the beauty and goodness of God and what makes his good news towards us just so good.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, if you're confused what I mean by comfortable words, you can turn in your little bulletin today.
SPEAKER_00: You can find them on page 12.
SPEAKER_00: They happen just after the confession of sins and the absolution, and we'll say them today.
SPEAKER_00: These are four verses of Scripture that bear witness to the goodness of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And at our worst moments, when we are our most wayward, they allure us back to our generous Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first alluring, comforting word for us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This is our gospel text that I selected for us.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 11, verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: God's comforting word to you and I this morning is this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to meet you at the place of your deepest longing.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants to meet you in the place of deepest longing, buried deep down in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: So Matthew chapter 11, you can turn in your bulletin, page 8, or if you've got your Bible, please do pull that out.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is at this point in his ministry beginning to experience opposition.
SPEAKER_00: Scribes and Pharisees and the religious experts of his day are calling into question some of his message, some of his methods.
SPEAKER_00: He's experiencing loaded questions.
SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of pronouncing woes against cities that have rejected him in the verses that precede these, Jesus stops where he is, so it seems, and he offers this spontaneous act of prayer and praise.
SPEAKER_00: You ever do that?
SPEAKER_00: You ever just feel overwhelmed in a moment, and you just turn to God and just give thanks?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is doing that too, to his very own heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: In this moment, he offers prayer and praise.
SPEAKER_00: He thanks God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, these things being the message and the activities of the kingdom that is breaking into life through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You've hidden these things, you've obscured them from the wise and the understanding, which should probably strike us as odd, because usually it's the wise and understanding who are tuned in to these kind of things.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what we shouldn't read into that is a sort of anti-intellectualism, like Jesus has something against smart people.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: But the wise and understanding in Jesus' context have a diabolical inclination towards pride.
SPEAKER_00: I understand so well for myself that I don't need any outside help.
SPEAKER_00: I can make this on my own.
SPEAKER_00: No, this isn't anti-intellectualism.
SPEAKER_00: This speaks to the pride of someone who feels self-sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: You've obscured the kingdom from people who feel self-satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: But Father, you've revealed these things to little children.
SPEAKER_00: And little children is an inclusive word, right?
SPEAKER_00: It includes folks of all ages who come with a simple trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they discover the kingdom breaking in in him.
SPEAKER_00: So the way to God, Jesus is saying, is not through self-inflating achievement or ascent, but rather through humility.
SPEAKER_00: The way up is the way down, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 27, Jesus goes on to acknowledge his own uniqueness.
SPEAKER_00: All things, he says, have been handed over to me by the Father.
SPEAKER_00: It acknowledges his sovereign authority over all creation, over the kingdom, over everything.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes on to say that he is fully known by the Father, just as he fully knows the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Paul in Colossians chapter 2 will say that all the fullness of God dwells in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at the face of Christ, we behold who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: We behold who God is.
SPEAKER_00: There isn't a God hiding behind Jesus with ulterior motives.
SPEAKER_00: We know who God is by going to Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_00: So the way to God is through humble trust in Jesus, the Son who alone reveals the Father.
SPEAKER_00: All this being the case, the way up is the, or the way down is the way up through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus offers an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I want us to catch this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: Have we ever truly gone?
SPEAKER_00: I've reached my cap for pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: No more happiness for me, thanks.
SPEAKER_00: Those are wonderful things.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with those kind of successes or those kind of pleasures and privileges.
SPEAKER_00: But if we turn those into ultimate things, we find they never truly deliver on the promise, do they?
SPEAKER_00: If we turn that into the ultimate pursuit of our life, over which there's nothing greater, we find ourselves just so restless.
SPEAKER_00: Like the preacher.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps this invitation to those who labor and are heavy laden, or for those who know this feeling of being on the treadmill.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe it's especially for those who have gone after success in all these areas and wisdom and wealth and pleasure and toil, found them lacking, and decided to try religion.
SPEAKER_00: Because maybe that's the next step.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to apply ourselves to moral perfectionism and we're going to achieve everything that God expects of us.
SPEAKER_00: So was the philosophy of the Pharisees and the scribes that Jesus is so often sparring with.
SPEAKER_00: These were perfectionists, rigorists, calling people to absolute adherence to every jot and tittle of the law.
SPEAKER_00: This was the way you were going to achieve satisfaction, fulfillment with God.
SPEAKER_00: And this word that Jesus goes on to use in verse 30, the burden, this heavy-laden burden, describes the kind of teaching that these Pharisees and scribes and religious experts of the day applied to the people who came to them for consolation.
SPEAKER_00: He says in Luke 11, woe to you, lawyers, which isn't our sense of lawyer, it's experts in God's law or perfectionist preachers.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to you, for you load people with burdens hard to bear that you yourselves do not touch with your fingers, which is to say, you don't even lift your finger to give a hand to those you counsel.
SPEAKER_00: What burdens are hard to bear?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the burden of the moralistic religious treadmill.
SPEAKER_00: The striving to be good enough.
SPEAKER_00: The striving to be accepted.
SPEAKER_00: The striving to be perfect.
SPEAKER_00: And all that these perfectionist preachers can offer is not consolation or mercy for the wayward and the wounded, but rather more rules to follow.
SPEAKER_00: Rules that make up for the rules that you broke.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus instead wants to invite us to a way of rest.
SPEAKER_00: A rest from burdens, a rest from weariness.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to meet us in the deepest longing of our soul.
SPEAKER_00: A longing for fulfillment and satisfaction and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Rest.
SPEAKER_00: That's the promise.
SPEAKER_00: I will give you rest, relief, consolation, comfort.
SPEAKER_00: Could this be the most alluring thing about Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: That he meets the wayward and the wounded, not with rules to follow, but with rest in his person, in his friendship, in being for us and not against us.
SPEAKER_00: This is consolation for the desolate sinner.
SPEAKER_00: This is the greatest need of a weary soul.
SPEAKER_00: And we might want to ask, well, what does it look like to rest in Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's a passive thing like putting your feet up on the green couch at TD Bank.
SPEAKER_00: There's an active participation in that rest.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus goes on to say, verse 29, take my yoke upon you.
SPEAKER_00: And a yoke was the wooden beam you'd put on oxen as they were plowing the field.
SPEAKER_00: Join yourself to me and go in my direction, Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: But in doing so, you'll discover that my yoke is not heavy like perfectionist preachers lay it on you heavy.
SPEAKER_00: You'll discover that it's easy and my burden is light.
SPEAKER_00: Because unlike perfectionist preachers, which expect you to do the hard work for God, the gospel of Jesus tells us that God has done the hard work for us.
SPEAKER_00: And the cross is proof of that.
SPEAKER_00: Learn from me.
SPEAKER_00: This is where wisdom and understanding enter into the Christian life, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: We study God's word, we meditate upon it, we gather with other Christians to share our hearts and to discover God's word together.
SPEAKER_00: And we discover a God who is gentle and lowly in heart towards us, not harsh or reactionary, not proud and dismissive, but gentle and lowly.
SPEAKER_00: And so we find rest for our souls.
SPEAKER_00: A rest in the perfect and complete forgiveness and freedom in Christ, not another round on the treadmill, not another attempt to appease God, but a gift, God's rest for you, having accomplished for you what we cannot do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: So meditating on these verses, one of my favorite reformers, John Calvin, says, Let our miseries drive us to seek Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When we feel desolate and when we feel weary and wayward, so often I can feel like that's exactly the opposite type of person Jesus wants to spend time with.
SPEAKER_00: I can only go to him when I'm at my best.
SPEAKER_00: But John Calvin seems to conclude the opposite based on what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: The offer is for those who are weary and heavy laden.
SPEAKER_00: The offer is those who are weak and wounded and wayward to come and discover rest.
SPEAKER_00: So our desolation is exactly where Jesus wants to meet us, and it can drive us to seek after his gentle and lowly heart towards us.
SPEAKER_00: Because, friends, God's comfortable word today for us is rest in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let's rest with him.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening today.
SPEAKER_00: We worship a generous God who calls us to follow him in giving willfully, cheerfully, and sacrificially.
SPEAKER_00: Newsong Church's mission and ministry is 100% funded by the generous gifts of those worshiping and journeying with us.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to offer a gift towards Newsong's ministry, please visit Newsongportperry.ca slash giving for more information on how to do that.
SPEAKER_00: May God bless you and keep you today and every day.