Jesus calls Come with Revelation and Repentance

Matthew 11:25-30

Come with Revelation & Repentance!

Matthew 11:25-30, At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 28 Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Jesus’ Personal Invitation.

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.

The Lord pictured knocking on the door of a man’s heart. He came into the world to reach men and to draw men into fellowship with Himself. He wants to enter in our life and so He knocks. He knocks through a sermon. He knocks through a book, through a tract or through video.

He knocks through the Scripture, He knocks through a Christian friend, He knocks through a marital problem, He knocks through the death of a loved one, He knocks through poverty, He knocks through loneliness, He knocks through pain.

He knocks through suffering. He knocks, and He wants to come in and dine with Him. There’s another invitation in Luke 14.

Luke 14:15-17, Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, 17 and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’

The picture is of a man who gives a great feast. Apparently, a great man, perhaps a king, he gives a great feast. He sends out many invitations. The people responded saying we will come. When the feast is ready, we will come.

Because of the many that were invited that he did not know how long the preparation would take. So, he could not tell them exactly when it would be begun, but they knew it was to come. When everything was finally ready, he sent the servant to say now is the time for you to come. You have already responded and said you would come and now is the time.

Luke 14:18-20, But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ 20 Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ Nobody buys a piece of ground that he never saw. Even if this one was foolish enough to do that, did he have to go see it at the time of the banquet? Nobody buys oxen that aren’t proven either. How could you determine the price if you didn’t know how good they were?

Just because you are married doesn’t mean you can’t come. Bring your wife. She might enjoy it. The whole point is they were feeble alibis. Throughout history Israel had been extended the invitation, and Israel had said that we will come.

When the Messiah came and said ready, they all began to give their excuses.

Was the banquet cancelled? No.

Luke 14:21, So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’

What is this saying to us? These people couldn’t come on their own. The poor people wouldn’t come, because they had be intimidated by the wealth of the man to whose home they were coming.

The maimed and the lame couldn’t get there unless they were brought. The blind couldn’t find it. This was a group that had to be dragged in.

• They had to be ushered in.
• They had to be carried in.
• They had to be led in.
• They were the nobodies of society.
• They were the destitute and the outcasts and the hurting.

Exactly the ones the Lord turned to the poor, the blind and the maimed.

Luke 14:22-23, And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ 23 Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. He wanted a full house, a full banquet, and so they were to call on anybody that would come.

What happened to ones who were originally invited?

Luke 14:24, For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”

All who refuse the Lord’s invitation for salvation will be excluded from the kingdom. It shows us is that first the Lord came to reach His people Israel, the ones who had originally been the invited guests who were supposed to come to the feast.

But when the time was ready, they were not, and they had all these excuses. So, He turned to the outcasts, the hurting people, the humble, the deprived, the desperate, who knew they had no resources, and they came. God will call whoever will come.

Those who come will be those who have no resources. Those who are brought because they can’t even get there on their own. The Lord gives an invitation and now is the time to respond. V 28, Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The hurting people. The people with burdens who want to get rid of those burdens.

So, our Lord offers an invitation to come into the heart, to invite us to a feast and to rest. The word rest means salvation. We learned that last Sunday from Hebrews 3 and 4. An invitation to salvation rest, to immediate, present-tense salvation as well as its kingdom rest and its heavenly rest fulfilment.

The Lord is calling men to salvation. Humility. V 25, At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight God redeems infants who can’t ever come to God on their own.

Revelation. V 27, All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

In verse 25 it says that God has revealed the things of the kingdom unto babes.

What does that mean revealed unto babes? All the truth is bound up in the Father and the Son. The only people who know it are the people to whom the Son does reveals it. So that salvation comes to the one who is humble but based on sovereign revelation from God.

No man may know anything about kingdom salvation unless God’s Son reveals it to him. It is not available to the human mind. V 25 talks about man’s attitude. There needs to be a brokenness and a humility. But verse 27 talks about God’s part.

There must be a sovereign revelation. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, There are two things in that statement that indicate.

• a) Jesus is God.

It is a statement of His deity. It is a statement of the essence of the heart of the kingdom gospel, that Jesus is God and that is the heart of our faith. If any man denies that Christ is God in the flesh, he is accursed.

He has violated the basis of the gospel. The gospel begins with the fact that Jesus is God. “My Father.” That is the first time in the New Testament that Jesus has ever said that. He has said, “Our Father,” He has never before said, “My Father.”

He is saying it in a way of uniqueness as God’s only begotten Son. When Jesus said the same thing, or similar things, on other occasions, the people clearly understood what He meant even though some cults today seem to deny that.

John 10:30-31, I and My Father are one.” 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.

They didn’t stone Him for saying He had one purpose with God. They attempted to stone Him for saying He was equal with God.

John 10:38-39, but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” 39 Therefore they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their hand.

What Jesus was calling that He is absolute equality with the Father.

John 10:33, The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”

There was no question in their minds what He was saying. My Father brings to us a new intimacy, a new development of the uniqueness of Christ’s relationship to God insofar as the revelation of Matthew is concerned.

So, the first statement about His deity is that intimacy of My Father.

• b) All things belong to Jesus

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, What does all things mean? All things. All things are delivered. At one point we were handed over to Him. Only God knows when and how that ever happened. However, that happens in eternity is beyond us. But the fact stands that all things are delivered to Christ.

Matthew 28:18, And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

We have already learned in Matthew that He had authority

• over Satan,
• over demons,
• over illness,
• the body,
• the soul,

• life,
• death,
• disciples.
• He had authority to save.
• He had authority to forgive sin.
• He had authority to judge.

All authority. All things.

• Earth,
• Heaven,
• Hell,
• men,
• angels,
• devils,
• time,
• death,
• eternity,
• salvation,
• damnation,
• grace,
• judgment,
• life.

All things

• Truth,
• righteousness,
• glory,
• peace,
• joy,
• consolation,
• refreshing rest,
• hope,
• deliverance from sin,
• victory in temptation,
• overcoming the world,
• communion with God,
• the love of God,
• the life of God,
• everything.

Everything pertaining to divine life was committed to Christ. It’s a statement of His deity. no one knows the Son except the Father. If the Son is God, then no one can truly know the Son but the Father because only God can know God.

We cannot understand God. Our little puny brains can’t handle it.

He says that I AM God. I possess all the unlimited sovereignty of God. Therefore, only the Father really knows Me. No man knows Me. The religionists of that day thought they knew God. Jesus says, only the Father knows Me.

Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, Not only does only the Father know Me, but only I know the Father. All the knowledge of divine truth is bound up in the Trinity. It is a mutual perception by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It is locked into the trinity, and no man with his limited finite resources can ever perceive that knowledge. It is unavailable.

How did we ever get it? V 27, All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone

know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. The only way we will ever know is by a revelation by the Son, a revelation from God Himself. We have a babe who knows nothing, understands nothing, has no resources and he is the only one who can truly perceive what only God can know of eternal truth locked up in the infinite mind of the trinity.

How? Because God chooses to reveal it to him. So, salvation’s foundation that combination of the humble heart and an infinite God revealing Himself. We have the two elements that are always balanced in any proper perspective in salvation.

Man’s part: Prepared and open heart of humility. God’s part: Sovereign, gracious revelation. Ultimately the truth is locked in the trinity and never can it be known except the Son reveal it.

Jewish people never, ever will open their minds to let the Son reveal the truth. All those big temples, synagogues, it’s fruitless because only the Son can reveal it. He can’t reveal it to anyone whose heart is not humble and who does not recognize that they have no resources and no answers.

John 1:18, No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

We can’t see God. God is locked up with Christ in that marvellous relationship. God reveals not because we perceive. God must break into the blackness of our stupidity and can only do that into the heart that is humble and broken before Him.

So, salvation is a meeting of a humble, dependent, open, helpless heart with a revelation given by a gracious and sovereign God.

Repentance. V 28, Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

John 6:37, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.

There is a sovereignty of God, but then there is that open invitation.

How God harmonizes this? His problem, not mine! They are working hard by bearing a terrible burden and they cannot get relief. The word labour means to work to the point of sweat and exhaustion. To work until you are absolutely fatigued.

It refers to the weary search for the truth. The weary search for relief from the crushing load of a sin- laden, guilt-ridden conscience, the crushing effort of a trying to earn your own salvation.

Those of you who are frantically and tirelessly wearing yourselves out trying to earn your own salvation and find some peace of mind. Those of you who are working hard to rest. Jesus adds heavy laden. Means at some point in time somebody dumped a load on you, and you are carrying it.

You are enduring some incredible load. It’s not bad enough that you are working hard, but you are doing it with 400 kilos on your back and people keep stacking more on top of that. That isn’t rest. But the rabbis said that if you keep the intricacies of the law, you shall find rest. They used the word rest.

All the vain, fruitless, striving after peace and rest finally becomes such an intolerable burden. When you get to the place where you just can’t take another step, Jesus says “Come to Me.” Now that’s repentance. Metanoia – turn 180 degrees.

Turn around and come toward Me.

The Jewish rabbis just piled burdens on their people.

Acts 15:10, Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Matthew 23:4, For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. Jesus says, you who are trying to earn your own salvation, and you have had somebody dump a load of rules on you.

It just piles up and piles up the guilt, sin, and the unforgiveness and the lack of peace, contentment and joy has finally driven you to total exhaustion. Come to Me and find rest. This is a call to repentance to the dissatisfied.

This is a call to the people who have not found the answer and they are tired of looking for it in that area. They know they don’t have the answer. They know they can’t pull themselves into the kingdom with self-exertion. They have failed. They are overpowered and overburdened by sin. They know they are lost.

Jesus says turn around. Turn from the futile despair of self- effort to the provision of God’s grace. A person comes to the end of their resources, to the desperate point of being willing to turn from self and from sin to God, and to that person, the doors of the kingdom are opened.

Desperation is part of true salvation. You don’t just run along with all your load and grab Jesus and stick Him on top. Repent, turn around,

• stop doing that,

• stop trying to earn your own salvation,
• stop trying that work-righteousness system,
• stop all that sinning,
• stop that intolerable burden you are carrying.

Turn around. Come to Me. That is the message that the early church preached. That is the apostolic message.

Acts 2:38, Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 3:19, Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,

Acts 5:31, Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

Acts 8:22, Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray

God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. This was the message of Paul.

Acts 17:30, Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,

The elders of Ephesus at Miletus. Paul wanted to refresh in their minds.

Acts 20:21, testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Turning around and turning toward God.

1 Thessalonians 1:9, For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to

God from idols to serve the living and true God,

2 Timothy 2:25, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth,

Luke 15:7, I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

Luke 15:10, Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” See repentance is all bound up in salvation.

When Jesus blasted in fury at the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, He did it because they did not repent.

What does it mean to turn from sin? To realize the crushing load and turn away. So, the humble heart will see the futility of self-effort. It will know the unbearable weight of sin. The oppressive burden and anxiety of self-effort. It will finally cry out with a hunger and a thirst for God.

The sovereign revelation of God’s grace is there to receive that one who turns from sin. The other side of repentance is faith. V 28, Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Acts 20:21, testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is not a church, It is not a pastor or a preacher, It is not a set of rituals or a bunch of ceremonies. The object of our faith is Jesus Christ. Believe in Me.

Come is the equivalent of believe.

John 6:35, And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. If you come and don’t hunger, you believe and don’t thirst, then coming and believing are the same thing. Come means to believe. Sometimes the Bible says it receive Me. Sometimes it says eat Me or drink Me or confess Me or hear Me, but it all means to believe. Salvation is believing that Jesus is God.

• He came to the world,
• He died a substitutionary death,
• He rose from the grave on the third day for our justification,
• He ascended into heaven,
• He sits at the right hand of the Father,
• He intercedes for us and
• He is coming again and
• He can save us from our sins.

That’s believing in Christ.

Salvation is coming to Christ in faith. You genuinely come and your faith is spurred on because you have no other resources you come in desperation.

Acts 10:43, To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”

John 3:16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

What is salvation? Believing in Christ. It is a humble heart met by a sovereign God who reveals His truth, it is then a desperation that says, “I can’t carry the load of my sin anymore,” it turns away from sin, puts its faith in Christ.

Conclusion

Submission

Salvation is submission. V 29-30, 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. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” There is a submission involved in salvation.

There is a responsibility to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Salvation is taking on a yoke. There is responsibility involved. The Jews used the phrase, the yoke, to refer to entering into submission to something.

Peter used it in Acts, about the yoke that the Pharisees put on people that they can’t bear. The yoke is that which causes submission. Jesus says, when you come to Me you must come with a submissive heart. You must come to take a yoke.

Now in Palestine yokes were made from wood. The oxen would be brought in, and the carpenter very likely Jesus made yokes as a boy in his carpenter’s shop in Nazareth. The oxen would come in and they would measure the oxen.

They would carefully mark out the wood and they would carve it and then the ox would be brought back later for a final fitting because it was important that the yoke fit perfectly. It was the token of the submission of the animal to pull a load, to carry about a responsibility, to take orders, to be directed by someone, to plough a field or to pull whatever they were to pull.

Pupil who submitted himself to a teacher was said to take the yoke of the teacher. It was a yoke of instruction. Jesus is saying, take My yoke upon you.

“And learn from Me.” It is a yoke of submission to His Lordship, to His teaching, to His instruction. It is a yoke that implies obedience. True salvation occurs when you in your desperation turn from sin to Christ with a willingness to have Him take control of your life.

You can take Jesus as Saviour and not as Lord. The phrase learn of Me is mathētēs, which is the word translated in the New Testament disciple.

Be My disciple. This involves acknowledging His Lordship, being committed unto those good works.

Isn’t salvation all of grace? Of course, because you are a babe. What would you know if God wasn’t gracious to you?

Isn’t salvation not at all of works? Of course, it’s not at all of works. How could you do any work that could bring you the revelation of God hidden in the Trinity? It’s all of grace and it’s all of God’s mercy. For you to truly respond to His grace there must be a brokenness and a humility in your heart which causes you to turn from your old life to Christ and the legitimacy of your turning is indicated by your willingness to submit and obey.

How is it then to be under the yoke of Christ? If I was going to have a yoke made for my oxen, I think I would probably go to the carpenter’s shop where Jesus made yokes, because I imagine He made the best one. That’s true in the spiritual dimension.

The yoke that He makes is easy and the burden He gives is light.

Why? Because He’s meek and lowly. Jesus, unlike the Pharisees and the scribes, does not desire to oppress us. He does not desire to pile burdens on us that we cannot bear.

• He is not interested in trying to show how tough it is.
• He is gentle.
• He is tender.
• He gives us something we can carry.

It’s easy and it’s light. There is a yoke of obedience. There is a yoke of submission to Christ, but it is not grievous. It is joyous. It is the greatest liberation in my life. It is when I disobey that the yoke irritates my neck.

But in obedience and submission to the Lordship of Christ there is an ease and there is a lightness.

A humble heart, broken over despair of life and the weight of sin, is touched by the sovereign grace of God as He reveals Christ. That individual repents of sin, turns in faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and his faith is shown to be genuine because he willingly submits his life in obedience to Christ’s Lordship.

Result? Rest! This is exactly what Jeremiah said.

Jeremiah 6:16, Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ Jesus says, walk in this way and there is rest for your souls.

They said, we will not walk in it. Our Lord offers salvation, then and now. I trust we are more ready to receive it than they were and to enter into the rest of His eternal grace.