Invitations. Do you like getting them? Yes? No? Depends? Birthday parties. Kids usually
like going to birthday parties. I see somebody smiling down here. A dinner invitation. Can
you come over to my house for dinner? Sure. That means I don't have to cook. Young people.
A date. Guys are usually a little trepidatious about asking because they don't know whether
the girl is going to say yes or not. But generally, invitation to a date is a good thing. Invitation
to come to church. Some people are like, yeah. Some people are like, eh. A tea. Now guys
probably a thumbs down on that one. Most ladies go, sure. A sporting event. Guys, mostly thumbs
up. Some gals thumbs up and some of us go, really? An invitation to be a partner. A golf
partner if you're into that. So most of those are good invitations. Some invitations are
a command. A parent who invites his child or her child to go shopping. Most boys are
thumbs up or thumbs down? Thumbs down. Most guys, ugh. They don't like that. Most girls,
thumbs up. I saw that instant. Thumbs up. Yeah. You either love it or you hate it, but
is it an invitation you can refuse? No. We have an invitation and a command to Sabbath
worship. I would hope everybody here is eager to accept that invitation. Then there's another
kind of an invitation. How about if the President of the United States invited you to go to
a party? As an invitation, but you think you sort of got to show up? Yeah. You do. You
sort of have to show up and at that point you might be concerned about, do I have the
right clothes? I know I could go through my closet and go, uh-uh. I don't have those kind
of clothes. But it's an invitation and it's a command. This morning we're going to look
at one of these in the Bible that's invitation and a command. Jesus gave it several times
in his ministry in our text that Paul read for us this morning. Come to me all you who
labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me and you will find rest for your souls. There's actually two commands in that verse.
There's come and there's take my yoke. We're going to focus mostly on come, although we'll
do a little bit with the yoke. It's a command and an invitation. If you want what is promised,
you better take the invitation. He promised rest and he said come. Come as you are. Give
yourself to him, holy, completely, without reservation. It might be interesting or important
to know what Jesus meant when he gave this command. Come. We in English, we have one
word for come and it's used in a whole bunch of different ways. It's like, oh, come on
over or show up kind of come. In Greek, as far as I can tell, there are three and they
each have different meanings. Jesus used the word come. He used all three of them, but
this morning we're only going to focus on the one that was given as a command invitation.
The word is diute. That's the best I can do pronouncing it. Sounds kind of like our word
duty and it's probably it's rude. But it means come. Come now. Come hither. Follow. It's
a verb for those of you who are English people. In its imperative form, it's a command. Do
it now. Come. Show up. Well, if you look back at the test, who's invited? Those who are,
those who labor and are heavy laden. That could be physical work and some of you do
that kind of physical work that makes you tired. It can be work that has problems at
work and that just wears at you. I know some of you have jobs that are wearing. It could
be financial problems, just not having quite enough to make it. But I believe it applies
mostly to those with heavy spiritual and emotional burdens and those who bury bear a huge load
for other people. We are invited to come no matter the type of labor and no matter how
heavy the burden is. We are invited to come. We're also told to take his yoke and learn
of him. If we take the yoke, we submit to be yoked for him, yoked with him. A yoke joins
two, usually two animals together, okay, for the purpose of work. Cows pull a wagon, a
cart, a plow when they're yoked together. The good news is this yoke is his yoke and
he bears the heaviest part of the load. It means yielding myself to his training, submitting
to his will, and making my whole life one with him. In other words, abide in Christ
and more on that later. What's the promise in that verse that we read to start out with?
Come unto me and I will give you rest. We all need that. Rest from work, yes. How about
rest from self-direction? And if you do that, you just make a decision and you go with it.
I'll have to own, I do that. But this is a rest from always doing that. It's rest from
trying to work our way to heaven. Anybody tried that? How's it working for you? It doesn't
work, does it? Okay. It can be rest from trying to solve other people's problems. That can
be a really heavy load. And there are people who do that. I don't know how they do it day
in and day out. But you can have rest from that. Rest is found in depending on Jesus.
That's the only place it comes from. This rest is in Christ. It's not something he gives
apart from himself. The rest comes only in joining with him and abiding, remaining and
staying not with him but in him. There's a difference. There's a preposition in the Greek
that drives me crazy. And in English we just say en. It's en in English. And it can be
translated as with, by, beside, on top of, under, in, into. It can be translated all
those ways. And it drives me nuts. Okay? So I pinned Aaron down at prayer meeting Wednesday
night and I said, Aaron, this is driving me nuts. How do I know which preposition to use?
And he told me it depends upon the case of the noun. In English we don't have them. But
in Greek apparently they have five or six of them. And because when it says to abide
in Christ, it's the case that Christ is, that noun Christ is in that makes it in. That was
more than I knew before Wednesday night. But if we abide in him, it's not the same as abiding
with him. Abide in him. He says, I will abide in you and you will abide in me. It's joining
ourselves to him. Do I understand it completely? No. But I'm striving for it. Okay? Abide in
him. Okay. Jesus gave this call several times. In Mark it says the apostles gathered to Jesus
and told him all the things, both what they had done and what they had taught. It was
when he sent them out. He'd been teaching them. He sent them out and they were telling
him all, came back and told him everything they'd done. And he said to them, come aside,
come aside to a deserted place and rest awhile for there were many coming and going and they
didn't even have time to eat. He said, come and do what? Rest. Come and rest. And they
went. It's still important to set aside time to rest, to spend personal time with Jesus.
We're not meant to be machines driven to always work, not even spiritual work. Pastors and
teachers sometimes get caught in this trap and some of the rest of you do too, is working
and working and working and working and not having or taking, we always have the time,
not taking the time to spend with him. He calls us to rest in him, to spend time with
him, to take time apart from life's busyness. Ask yourself a question, does that fit my
life? I know when I was teaching full time as a teacher, teacher principal, I worked
60 to 70 hours a week. Kids think vacations are for them. Guess what? The teachers need
it as much as they do. But his call to come isn't just for vacation. His call to come
is do it now. Remember that was part of the definition. Come and rest. Come and abide.
Early in Jesus' ministry, shortly after his baptism, he was walking by the Sea of Galilee
and he saw Simon and Andrew and his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen.
And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Now that word follow
is the same word as come. Come. I will make you fishers of men. They immediately left
their nets and followed him. So when Jesus gives you the invitation, come, when is the
appropriate time to do it? Now. Immediately. Jesus wanted to make them fishers of men.
They followed him. They remained physically, they remained with him, physically abided
or dwelt with him during his ministry. And after his death, they learned to spiritually
abide with him. More on that later. Then there's Zacchaeus. Now all kids love Zacchaeus, right?
Because he was little. And I think some of the adults who were short probably appreciate
that as well. I wasn't blessed with shortness. My dad was six foot one and he almost gave
me every inch of it. I'm glad I didn't get to six foot one. But there are people who
are born short. And so Zacchaeus is precious. And Jesus came to him and he said, Zacchaeus,
be haste and come down. There's that word come again. Come down. For today I must stay,
abide, same word, at your house. So who was there? Jesus, the crowd, and Zacchaeus up
in a tree. He was a chief tax collector, a sinner, not lightly regarded by the townspeople.
His name ironically meant pure and innocent. Isn't that interesting? His name meant pure
and innocent. He wanted to see Jesus. It was given to him, this invitation or command,
however you want to look at it, was given to a man who was considered the worst of sinners
and yet salvation came to him because he desired to see Jesus. He wanted to see him. He wanted
something better than what he had. We need to remember that Jesus is calling those we
might deem to be unworthy. You know? There's people like that where we figure they deserve
what they're going to get. But Jesus is calling them too. You know? Most of us have a person
in our life, if we're really honest, we can look and we can say, you know what? They're
going to get theirs one day. Jesus is calling them too. There's a clue hidden in this story.
Jesus said, come down. Today I must abide at your house. He came to dinner at his house
and physically abided in Zacchaeus' house. But when he left, Zacchaeus continued to spiritually
abide with Jesus. And this is what we're called to do, is spiritually abide in Jesus.
Here's another one. The wedding feast. One of the many. But this is the one where the
master told the servants, tell those who are invited to come. I've prepared my dinner.
My oxen, my fatted cattle are killed. And things are ready. Come to the wedding. That's
an invitation and a command. Come to the wedding. But when they went out, those that were invited
didn't come. They said, ah, I don't want to go to that wedding. And they seized his
servants. They treated them spitefully and killed them. The king wasn't very happy. And
we're not going to explore all the ins and outs of this parable. But then he said to
his servants, the wedding is ready. But those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore,
go to the highway and hedges. And as many as you find, invite to the wedding. So the
servants went out into the highways and gathered together, all whom they found, both good and
bad. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. Jesus is still going to the highways
and hedges, inviting all to come. Not all answer the call. The call has given at all
times. And it's still being given today to come. After the resurrection, the disciples
went fishing. Jesus cast the net on the right side of the net boat because they hadn't caught
any fish. He said, yeah, throw it on the right side. Some figure that that was the side Jesus
was on. I don't know how they figured that, but I like the idea. And it became so full.
It had 153 fish in it. That's a pretty large catch when you haven't caught anything all
night. And Peter had to drag it up. And then Jesus said something. He said, come and eat
breakfast. That same word. Do it now. Come hither. Come and eat. The disciples didn't
ask any questions because they knew it had to be Jesus. I mean, who else had put 153
fish in their net? They knew it was Jesus. Why is this an important little thing? You
know, just this little clip. The disciples who had been abiding with Jesus for over three
years, when Jesus died, was resurrected, they went back to their old occupation, catching
fish. He promised to make them fishes of men, but now he invites them to cast their net.
And then he invites them to come and eat breakfast. While he was offering physical food, fish,
you kind of got to wonder where he got the fish. I don't know. But he had fish already
prepared while they were dragging the fish up. But more than that, he was offering them
spiritual food and he gave them assurance that he was still with him. When we abide in Jesus,
we partake of spiritual food. It's rich. It's good. Now, this abiding business, to abide
means to remain or to stay. It's not, this is a long term relationship, just as Jesus
meant to be with Zacchaeus. It's long term to abide. It's not on again, off again. They
were called to abide with him and he left some really, some amazing promises. He said,
oh, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world. It was for them. It's also for
us. I'm with you always. So how are we supposed to do this? Okay, this abiding business, he
said that he would abide in us and we were to abide in him. The teacher in me has to
get to the, all right, tell me how. Right? Tell me how. You tell me I'm supposed to,
but if you don't tell me how, I only know I'm supposed to. I don't know how to get there.
Well, I'm still in school and I'm still learning this abiding business. I think most of you
would own that you're in that same position. You're still learning to abide. Again, it's
not an off again, on again thing, but the first thing it requires is a relationship.
You have to come before you can abide. That's why Jesus said come. He said come and abide
and this relationship requires time. I'll tell you when you're working 60 and 70 hours
a week, that time is really hard to come up with. By the time you cook, you do laundry,
you clean the house and you teach school, all you want to do is go to bed and catch
some sleep. Right? Well, I no longer do that. I don't have an excuse. Some of you work really
long hours, but he's still calling you to come and abide. So here's the how to as I
understand it. First, I must come. Not just once, but repeatedly, daily, hourly, I must
come to him. Next, in any relationship there's communication. I need to talk and I need to
listen. Now, I'm really good about talking. Those of you who know me know I can do that
pretty well. Question is, how well do I listen? When I spend time with Jesus, that's the hardest
part for me is to shut up, be quiet and listen. I don't know about you, but that's hard for
me to just be still and see what he would say. I learned from reading his word and I
listen to what I'm reading. I'm hearing that, but he wants to be more personal than that.
He wants us to just take a bit of time and listen to what he has to say. My sister actually
taught me that. I hate to tell you how long ago she taught me. I wish I had learned it
when I was 20. It took me way longer than that to learn that. So listening happens both
by spending time in the word and listening to what the word says and by just being still.
Try it. It's harder than you think it is. At least it is for me. It requires time and
conscious effort and it means this abiding business is living life from a different point
of view. That's just what it is. His invitation or his command to come is given with the intent
that we should develop a relationship with him, one that requires this abiding in him.
Do we do it perfectly? Do I do it perfectly? I wish I could say yes. I perfectly abide
in Christ all the time. The sorry part of that answer is I'm just like the rest of you
folks. I falter, I fumble, I stumble, but that's my goal. This continuous abiding in
Christ. We are human. Jesus wants this relationship with us. He doesn't cast us aside when we
falter and when we fumble and when we stumble. He keeps working with us. He keeps drawing
us. He keeps abiding in us. So we're winding down here. What are the results of following
Jesus? There's some amazing promises. This one comes from Matthew. When the Son of Man
comes in his glory and all his only holy angels with him, then he shall sit on the throne
of his glory and all the nations will be gathered before him. He will separate them one from
another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on his
right hand and the goats on the left hand. Then he will say to those who are on his right
hand, come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. His invitation is still, come, come. And then we have some final invitations.
This one's really familiar with this. This one comes from Revelation. The last two come
from Revelation. Revelation 3 20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears
my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me. I
will come in. I stand at the door and knock. If you just open the door, he'll come in.
The last promise, this comes from Revelation 22 17, is so close to the end that it's almost
there. The spirit and the bride say, come. Let him who hears say, come. And let him who
thirsts, come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. So today the invitation
is the same as it's always been. Come and abide with me. Really? It's the last invitation
that's given. Come and abide. Come and abide.