Matthew 11:28-29 ” Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.“
We encourage you to read Bible Study Lesson One before reading Numbers Two and Three, for a better understanding of the entire lesson!
THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF ALL BIBLE STUDY
Lesson Two
HOW PEOPLE CAN BE SAID TO COME TO CHRIST AND TO BE SERVING HIM ALTHOUGH THEY “WILL NOT” TO COME TO HIM OF THEMSELVES
The action of God to recover humans from their utterly rebellious state and to bring them into friendship with Himself involves a spiritual process conceived, launched, and finished by Him. This is the truth about God’s plan of salvation that makes many people angry because it reveals that the Lord has not consulted with humans about how this action will be accomplished. He also has not left part of this action to some internal, unassisted response by the human who is to be the recipient of it. God knew from the beginning that, left to themselves, humans would never of their own volition seek Him for salvation. But, because He intended to rescue a people for His name He took the initiative and implemented a way for this to occur. First, every sin that was ever performed in all of creation had to be punished because the justice of God demands it. If someone could become sin for people, then God would not require that sinners pay for their own sins. Jesus Christ agreed to give Himself as the sin offering for His people (Hebrews 10:5-7; 10), that the justice of God might be satisfied and that they might be able to possess the righteousness necessary to stand before God without sin.
To make the work of Christ effective upon the soul of a human, God knew that He would need to alter the will of those whom He purposed to save. To do this, there had to be divine power exercised over the will of His subjects. This power is exercised by the Holy Spirit to produce a new birth in the individual to whom He comes. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ becomes meaningful to such a person because he/she has the new spiritual nature which can comprehend the sin of unbelief, the consequences of it, the reality that Christ died for him/her, and the amazing grace manifested in this reality (1Corinthians 2:12) . Thus, those so touched by the Holy Spirit are led to repent of sin before God and discover faith in Christ resulting in salvation (2Corinthians 7:10) . Once set free from sin’s bondage by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit and faith in Christ, we willingly come to Him and have desire in our hearts to follow Him (Philippians 3:10).
Believers then, have come to Jesus Christ and trusted Him to take care of their sins. If this is true then, how does the invitation in our text apply to them? Why should they need an additional invitation once they have found salvation? A believer who has faced the world as a new creature for only a short time will have learned that this invitation not only fits his case, but will also have learned that children of God have a very special need for this kind of access to Christ. He says, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” to His people because we may be distracted or overcome by worldly cares and burdens. Living in a world in which we are surrounded by things which try men’s souls we are in jeopardy of being swallowed up with too many trials or cares. We have special spiritual needs not found in earthly things. We are targets for Satan’s devices. We may be targets for merciless or cruel unbelievers who think it is quite amusing to make fun of or belittle us. All these things cause us to need the rest promised to us by our Savior. If we use it, we grow to trust Him more and more.
We also need the invitation to come to the Lord Jesus Christ because believers are tempted to look in other places for relief in times when they are overburdened. We live in a carnal body in a carnal world where many other kinds of resources and solutions abound. In our society, these resources are sometimes easy to get, and man-made fixes for an overburdened life appeal to the flesh and may provide what appears to be reasonable solutions that seem like good ones on the surface. In addition, these fixes are so easily seized on by us that we are often tempted to use those that are perfectly legitimate and acceptable without consulting the Lord before we use them. It may be perfectly proper to see a doctor when we are ill , but the real question is whether or not we have consulted the great Physician as part of making plans to do so.
An instance in this modern time where believers are tempted to find relief without divine guidance is in regard to finances. Making a living may be dragging us down and we may be looking all around for something to help us meet those monthly bills. There are dozens of ways to seek rest from nagging debt, but no way is appropriate for a child of God until he has consulted with the Master who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and owns the thousand hills in addition. Our Lord owns all the money on the earth, and His eyes are upon the righteous to help them in time of need . So, let us remind ourselves to talk to Him about our financial plans. Moreover, when we talk to Him about these things, let’s remember that He is a far better financial planner than we. It may be that you are in a financial difficulty right now because you failed to speak to Him before you took past action in regard to money matters. In this materialistic age it seems to almost be a status symbol to be in debt beyond our means.
This materialism is the poison of the age and is born of too great a focus on earthly things. The magnitude of this obsession with earthly possessions and comforts has reached a pace that the world has never known before. Well-meaning, people are buying things they want, and too often I fear they are not consulting the Great Counselor, Jesus Christ about these purchase decisions. The end result is disastrous for many, and if unwise spending is practiced by God’s people, it is simply because they did not seek counsel from the Lord. The result from this may be as damaging as for those who do not care about the Lord’s things and would not consult Him if they were encouraged to do so. In 2019, there were 733,000 bankruptcies filed in the U.S. Perhaps many of these were professed believers. It is tragic that such an end could be avoided by seeking the wisdom of God about the use of money. Our Father has provided things on this earth for our use and even our comfort, but to pursue money and the things of luxury and gain in a misdirected spirit of materialism is to embrace sorrow (1Timothy 6:10). So, as children of God, let us keep in mind that solutions for our unrest lie in coming to Christ. He will give us the rest we need and hunger for if we will only look in the right direction (Matthew 6:33) and heed the guidance of Him who holds the key to rest.
There is yet another reason why the Lord’s people need the invitation from Christ, “come unto me….” That is, believers have a difficult time fully understanding, appreciating, and embracing the truth about the empathy of Christ for His people. We are worms, and this is our Great God and the Lord Jesus Christ bidding us to come! We can hardly comprehend that the exalted God would make such a gracious offer to one so despicable! This kind of thought process causes our belief to be corrupted. We just can’t get our arms around the idea of Jesus Christ the Lord-Who-Is-Glorious being so concerned with our laboring along under a load of care that He is freely holding out a promise that we may simply reach for and possess. How many times have we as the Lord’s people failed in our full understanding of the incomparable ability of our Savior to empathize with our condition? How hard it is in our human frame to understand fully what is meant when scripture tells us that He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows . How difficult it is to seize on the wonderful truth that every pain of life, every agony of cruel experience, every sorrow of loss, and every physical or mental wounding we will ever endure He has an intimate, personal awareness of! He has felt the tiredness, the defeat, the despair of our soul that tries to overwhelm us (Hebrews 4:15) , and not just that which a single human might feel. Rather, He has felt all of these for all His people in one life and death experience! But, He has risen up in the power of His might and smothered them all with the victory of His resurrection! His vesture is dipped in blood , but that vesture has a name on it “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS ,” (Revelation 19:16) because He has overcome all the forces of the world for us. He stands and says “come unto me….” because He knows our frame that it is but dust and He knows that we must have respite. He says “come unto me….” because He knows that He can provide the rest we need. He is our great High Priest in heaven, with power to give us all things . Rest is assured if we only come to His throne of grace boldly to find mercy and grace to help in time of need. In Lesson Three we will look in more detail at the invitation from Christ to go even further in our relationship with Him after we have come to Him.
We will look further at Christ’s teaching in our chosen verses in Lesson Three.