July 26, 2014

Accept This Invitation!

7th Sunday after Pentecost, 7/27/14
Matthew 11:25-30


Accept This Invitation!
I. It comes from the God-man, Jesus Christ.
II. It offers you the rest you need.



Your hand reaches into your home’s mailbox and you retrieve what was delivered earlier that day. As you sort through it piece by piece, one of them is from someone you know and it’s in an envelope that’s smaller than the envelopes most mail comes in. You open it and quickly discover that it’s an invitation. What’s your reaction?

That depends on several things, chiefly how much that person means to you. If you are very close to this person, you receive that invitation with joy. You want to be a part of this event—be it a wedding or graduation or birthday. In fact, you may have been expecting this invitation. Your loved one may have even told you to watch for it.

On the other hand, this invitation might bring you mild internal affliction. You really don’t want to attend. You have other things you’d rather do that day. It means you’ll need to buy a gift no matter if you attend or not. What’s more, your relationship with this person had been cooling for some time. You tended to consider this person as a mere acquaintance, not as someone you currently share life-events with.

One invitation. Two polar opposite reactions.

I’ve got an invitation for you this morning. Actually, Jesus has an invitation for you. It’s one of the sweetest and most well-known invitations in all of Scripture. It’s his invitation to receive his rest. So, what are you going to do with it? Accept it, of course! But believe it or not, there are times in our lives when we aren’t sure whether we want to accept it or not. There are times in our lives when we really don’t look forward to what he’s offering with his invitation. There are times in our lives when we think what’s he’s offering won’t do us any good.

Let’s not be so foolish today. Accept it! Accept this invitation! Let’s remind ourselves why as we ponder these words of Jesus this morning.

Part I.

I don’t know about you, but I get invitations nearly every day. Some of them arrive via US mail. But they’re actually marketing tools under the guise of invitations. They read something like this: “We invite you to an investment seminar. You are cordially invited to a presentation on long-term health insurance. You are invited to our grand opening. Join us for this charity event.” And they don’t limit their delivery to the US mail. They’re on almost every website I visit. I hear and see them several times every 30 minutes on my TV. And I’m skeptical about every one of them. I don’t know them. They don’t know me. It’s apparent they want something from me—usually both my time and my money. So I tune them out. I don’t read them or listen anymore.

As I mentioned earlier, Matthew 11 contains one the most familiar and most-loved invitations from our Lord on the pages of Scripture. You might think it’s among a chapter full of comforting verses such as Psalm 23. But that’s not the case at all. Matthew 11 is a sad account of how Jesus’ words about himself as the Savior of the world had been rejected by far too many people. In the opening section of this chapter, it appears John the Baptist, who was in prison at the time, was not pleased with the way Jesus was conducting his ministry. In the words right before our text begins, Jesus condemns the citizens of many of the cities around the Sea of Galilee where Jesus had performed most of his miracles and done most of his preaching. They didn’t accept him either. His recent invitations to them had been declined.

What a foolish thing to do. What makes it so foolish is the fact that Jesus is the one extending the invitation. Jesus wasn’t some self-serving huckster simply out to line his own pockets or fill his belly by preaching to the people and performing miracles. He wasn’t in this for himself at all.

He was in it for them as true God and true man, the God-man. That’s what Jesus was referring to when he said, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Jesus, standing there in human flesh and blood, was calling himself the Son, the eternal Son of God. Imagine that! Receiving an invitation from God himself! That makes every other invitation pale in comparison.

As the God-man, Jesus states that the Father knows him and he knows the Father. That’s obvious. What’s so special about that? Jesus means that the two of them know each other as only the two of them can. They are one in mind, will and purpose. They share eternity with each other. Jesus once told his disciples, “If you want to know what the Father is like, look at me.” In other words, Jesus is everything that the Father is.

And then come these comforting words, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” People who are proud, who feel they don’t need God, who are under the impression that they are so smart they can solve their own problems, miss out on the revelation that Jesus is the Savior they desperately need. But to us who know our sins and the damnation they deserve, who know how helpless we are on our own against the devil and our sinful world Jesus reveals himself as our loving, merciful, gracious Savior, the One whom the Father promised to send into the world.

That’s the One who extends an invitation to you this morning. So accept it! Accept this invitation. It comes from the God-man, Jesus Christ.

“I’ll handle this myself.” “I’ll get back to you later.” “I’m too busy right now to spend time with you.” “Thanks, but no thanks.” “I don’t need any right now.” Those are some of our negative responses when we receive an unwanted invitation or offer. Would you ever respond that way when the voice or hand extending you the invitation belongs to Jesus? Our snap response is, “Of course not!” but just a few seconds of honest reflection will find that we have and do. When our Lord and Savior is only one of many options, when he’s the last resort, when we lack confidence that he can and will do what he’s offering, when we get some twisted delight over suffering in silence, when we actually enjoy our personal pity party, then we’re shoving our Lord’s invitation back in his face. But Jesus doesn’t turn away. That’s what’s so amazing about him. He extends the invitation to us once again and graciously gives it to us through the working of his Holy Spirit in word and sacrament. Accept this invitation! It comes from the God-man, Jesus Christ, your Savior from sin.

Part II.

What weighs you down? Go ahead. Answer that. What weighs you down? By now it’s likely that your mind is racing with answers. The more you think about it, the more burdens you have. And then you look outside of your own life—out into our world—and the burdens multiply.

I don’t mean to sound like a Negative Ned. It’s true that we are very blessed people. We have much for which to be thankful.

But it’s also true that some days we seem to stagger from one problem to the next. We enjoy a victory, but then suffer two or three defeats in a row. In spite of all of humanity’s great accomplishments, we live in a world gone wrong and getting more wrong each day. And my sins and your sins have only made it worse. The root cause of all our burdens in life is sin. And what can you and I do about it?

Nothing! Not one thing! But Jesus can and did. That was his mission in coming to this earth. It was to win forgiveness. It was to remove the barrier that sin placed between us and the holy God. It was to bring us into a peaceful and loving relationship with the only God that exists. That’s what his sacrifice on the cross of Calvary was all about. By his death he removed the punishment we deserve for sin. He erased our guilt. By faith in Jesus as our Savior we live in the forgiveness of sins each and every day. Jesus invites you to receive that forgiveness. He tells you, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” He gives you rest for your soul.

And then he instructs you and guides you in Christian living. The yoke Jesus refers to is the Christian life and hope. His ways aren’t burdensome; they’re a joy for one who loves him. His ways don’t prevent us from experiencing blessings; his ways bring us his blessings. Walking with Jesus each day isn’t a drag; it’s a delight. Jesus invites you to come to him for the spiritual rest that you desperately need and learn what a delight it is to live in his ways.

Accept this invitation! It offers you the rest you need.

Can you imagine yourself saying something like this: “Jesus asks too much of me. Too much of my time. Too much of my fun. Too much of what I want to do. Too much loyalty to him”? Not out loud, but that’s actually what we’re thinking and saying when we decide that we’ll do what we want in spite of what Jesus says. Shame on us! Shame on us for looking at things backwards. It’s not what Jesus takes from us; it’s what he gives us. Forgiveness, full and free. Rescue from death in hell. Eternal life with him. Love and mercy. And the spiritual guidance we need every day as we walk with him. The Savior who sacrificed his life for you simply wants to be involved in your life every day so that he can bless you—bless you with his rest which you so desperately need. Don’t wait another moment! Accept this invitation! Amen.