The Greatest Invitation Ever – 3/9/25

Have you ever planned an event and grown increasingly frustrated at the lack of RSVPs?

RSVP simply means, it’s French for “Kindly Respond” or “Please Respond.” There have been numerous articles recently lamenting the disappearance of the RSVP. And it’s a little confusing because we have more ways to communicate than ever, but apparently the RSVP is quickly becoming extinct.

It got me thinking, why might we not RSVP? And the reason I think I know is because I have done many of these non-responses. Let me give you six possible reasons we don’t RSVP — a little useless information here.

1. The insecure non-responder. This is the person who doesn’t want to go, but doesn’t want to say they don’t want to go, so they don’t say anything.

2. The opportunist non-responder. This is the person  who’s waiting for a better option. Figuring if I delay my RSVP, I might get a better invitation. If I respond, then I’m bound and a little FOMO, like I might miss out on something.

3. The disorganized non-responder. I know none of us can identify with this. We intend to respond, but the invitation gets lost in the inbox or the pile on the desk.

Here’s a big one.

4. The free-range non-responder. This is the person who’s wired for spontaneity and assumes everyone else is, too. Why would they want an RSVP? I’ll just show up and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of food.

5. The exhausted non-responder. This is the person who’s in a season of life where just reading the invitation is exhausting, not to mention thinking about actually responding or going. The whole thing shuts you down. And there are various iterations of this. If you have social challenges, just the idea of invitations and attending social events can feel overwhelming.

6. The confused non-responder. This is the person who doesn’t really know what’s going on. Whether they skimmed the invitation or maybe the invitation wasn’t perfectly clear, they’re in a state of confusion. What’s going on?

Obviously there are many other reasons why we might not respond to an invitation. But the reason this is relevant for us this morning is we’re about to look at what has been called “The Greatest Invitation Ever.” And we’re going to see it comes to us in two parts, what we could call the inspiration of the invitation and then the actual invitation. Before we look at this, let’s pray.

Father, you know we are a very busy people and can easily be burdened, overwhelmed, and even bored in our busyness. We need a kind of rest that money cannot purchase, a day off in and of itself can’t provide. We need you, Jesus, Lord of Sabbath, Lord of rest. You satisfy our hearts in ways we did not expect. And so we ask that you would open our eyes to your greatness so that we would see you actually can do what you promise and in your goodness you desire to do what you promise. And as you do that, we pray that you would enable us to hear and respond to your invitation. We ask this in Jesus’s name, amen.

1. The inspiration for the invitation is in verses 25-27.

And pause here for a second. If you’re visiting, what we’re doing is we’re journeying through the gospel of Matthew. We’ve come to the end of Matthew 11. We’re going to try now to unpack these two last paragraphs and hear what God is saying to us.

Verses 25-27 describe the inspiration of the invitation. What is the motivation? What is the impulse? And the short answer is sovereign joy. Sovereign joy. What does that mean?

Sovereign is just a big word for the fact that God has absolute authority over all creation. When we say sovereign joy, what we’re referring to is the joy God has in being God. The pleasure of Trinitarian glory. Now what does that look like? Let me give you an example from Jesus’s prayer. When Jesus prays, for example, in John 17, he’s opening a window into sovereign joy. See if you can see it. John 17:4.

“I glorified [so this is Jesus praying to his Father, I glorified] you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

Before the universe was created, Father, Son, Spirit dwelt in perfect glory. What does that mean? Unimaginable love, joy, peace, rest. They lacked nothing. I know we as human beings can’t even imagine that, that God did not create the world because he was deficient or he needed us. He goes on in verse 13, Jesus prays,

“But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”

We’re being invited into the joy of God. Verse 22.

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Jesus is giving us in this prayer glimpses of sovereign joy. Now, where is this sovereign joy in the passage we’ve come to in Matthew 11:25-27? Let me give you two examples.

• gratefulness and pleasure

The first could be described as gratefulness and pleasure. Gratefulness and pleasure. Jesus begins, verse 25, Matthew 11,

“At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank you…’

Now pause. Don’t miss the “at that time,” because that is a link back to where we were last week to statements like verse 23 referring to cities like Capernaum who, Jesus said,

“And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven?”

Are you that presumptuous? You will be brought down to Hades. Keep that in mind. At that time, Jesus is contrasting the presumption of Capernaum with the pleasure of God. Verse 25 again,

“At that time Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, [there’s sovereignty] that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

Your gracious will. That could be translated, such was your good pleasure, your delight. Jesus is overflowing with gratefulness to his Father, who is Lord of heaven and earth, for his actions which are the fruit of his sovereign joy.

• hiding and revealing

What are his actions? You could summarize it this way: hiding and revealing. Hiding and revealing. And you’ll see it in verse 25 again.

“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.’”

Jesus is giving thanks to his Father that out of his own good pleasure, he hides from those who think they know, “the wise and the understanding,” and reveals to those who know they don’t know, “little children.”

Now remember a few weeks ago we talked about the difference between childlikeness and childishness back in verse 16. Here he’s saying I’m revealing to those who are childlike in that they know they don’t know. Yes, Father, for such was your good pleasure, your gracious will. What do childlike people know they don’t know? Verse 27,

“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.”

Little children are those who know they don’t know. They’re not like Capernaum, who assume, expect they’re going to be exalted to the heaven because they’re in the know. But the childlike have a deep awareness that unless I get an invitation from God, I’m not getting in.

What does that mean? Childlike people know they don’t know in the sense that they know there’s nothing with who I am. There’s nothing that I can do, I cannot climb high enough, I’m not spiritually smart enough to figure God out and be exalted to heaven, to get into the favor or presence of God in and of myself. Little children know that they don’t know.

Have you ever been invited into something or somewhere where, when you’re there you feel like, I shouldn’t be here? This happened to me many decades ago. Some friends and I — I was probably 20, looked 12. We were in Washington, D .C. and catching up with a friend who worked for President Reagan. And he said, “Hey, do you want to go through the White House?” And we’re like, “Can you?” He’s like, “Come on.” And we just start touring the White House. And he worked for Reagan at the time and he’s talking to Secret Service to find out when President Reagan was returning to his home. And we’re just rifling through the home, seeing the American artifacts. And the whole time, I remember thinking, I don’t think we’re supposed to be here. I definitely do not belong here.

And what Jesus is saying is, little children have that sense that verse 27 describes. I am completely dependent on God revealing himself to me through Jesus. And if he doesn’t, I’m toast. We’re going to see this again in chapter 16 when Jesus asked the disciples, who do you think I am?

“‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’”

Jesus is saying you can grow up in the perfect Christian home. You can attend church all your life. But if the Spirit of God doesn’t open your eyes to who Jesus really is, you will not know. It’s not something flesh and blood can figure out. The best teacher in Kidstuff, the most spiritual parent, can’t convince a darkened mind without a miracle from God.

This past week, some of us were studying in Romans 3. Listen to what Paul concludes. Romans 3:10,

“as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.’”

Now, we seek for gods. We seek for joys, superficial happiness.  But what the Bible is saying that none of us in and of ourselves are able to understand how holy God is, how sinful we are, our need of Christ. We do not naturally seek sovereign joy. You say, okay, but I am. When you’re talking about this, there’s something, I can feel it in my heart. I want that. I want to know him. And it’s been that way for a long time.

If that’s happening, what can we conclude? We are seeking him because he is seeking us, he is manifesting himself to us. He is drawing us. He is inviting us to come. And this is so crucial because we’re about to look at the greatest invitation ever. And it’s like Jesus is making clear that if you receive this invitation, you cannot in and of yourself say it’s because of me. It’s “I’m spiritual enough. I’m good enough. I’m different from other people.” No. It is the sovereign pleasure of God to reveal himself to those who would naturally never get it. And they know that. We have a sense that, Lord, if you don’t come to us, there’s no way we’re spiritually strong enough to climb to you or smart enough to figure it out.

2. The invitation

That is the inspiration from Father, Son, Spirit in verses 25-27 that sets us up to properly hear the invitation. Let’s look at this stunningly beautiful invitation. Verse 28,

“Come to me,”

Let’s just pause and take that in. “Come to me.” Notice first what he’s not saying. Come to church. Come to family. Come to Bible study, come to service, come to ministry. All those things are vital, beautiful, good. That’s not the invitation. We will misunderstand and misuse all those things if we don’t first hear this invitation. “Come to me,” Jesus says. Just like the inspiration of the invitation is intensely personal flowing from Father, Son, Spirit, so the invitation is intensely personal. I’m not offering you an event. I’m offering you a relationship. “Come to me…”

Who is invited? “All who labor and are heavy laden…” Everyone who knows what it’s like to bear the burden of sin. Your and other people’s sin. Everyone who knows what it’s like to bear the burden of sorrow, your sorrow and other people’s sorrow. Dr. A .J. Swoboda describes what this often looks like in our day. He writes,

“Our time-saving devices, technological conveniences, and cheap mobility have seemingly made life much easier and interconnected. As a result, we have more information at our fingertips than anyone in history. Yet with all this progress, we are ominously dissatisfied. In bowing at these sacred altars of hyperactivity, progress, and technological compulsivity, our souls increasingly pant for meaning and value and truth as they wither away, exhausted, frazzled, displeased, ever on edge… Our bodies wear ragged. Our spirits thirst. We have an inability to simply sit still and be. As we drown ourselves in a 24/7 living, we seem to be able to do anything but quench our true thirst for the life of God…

“The result… is that we have become perhaps the most emotionally exhausted, psychologically overworked, spiritually malnourished people in history.”

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, [what will he give us?] and I will give you rest.”

Rest. Notice verse 29 ends the same way.

“and you will find rest for your souls.”

Soul rest. Soul rest is much deeper than going on a vacation or taking a day off, although you may need both of those and a good nap as well. But Jesus is talking about something deeper. He’s the only one who can give soul rest because he’s the only one who has carried the burden of our deepest problem.

Isaiah 53:4, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;”

Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

The Gospel of Jesus leads to rest because Jesus is saying your sin is too deep. Your hurts are too complex. Let me carry those for you.

Hebrews 4:9, “So then, there remains [a Sabbaton] a Sabbath rest [in Hebrew, Shabbat] for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”

• What will we do?

When we turn to Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath, we enter into a perpetual Shabbat, Sabbath rest, that begins in this life and culminates in eternal rest. What do we do now in this rest? Look what he says next in verse 29,

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me…”

Jesus is using familiar language to them, discipleship language, apprenticeship language, that communicates that really learning and experiencing this rest is not going to happen today or tomorrow or this week or maybe even this decade. You’re entering into lifelong learning. It’s what discipleship is. The following Jesus and experiencing his rest. It’s not a quick fix.

Now, what is this yoke? A yoke is a farming tool for attaching, say, oxen to a plow. The Jewish religious leaders referred to the yoke of Torah, the yoke of the Law, and they viewed it as a beautiful thing. And it is until it isn’t, because the people often viewed it as an overwhelming thing. And this is why Jesus said of religious leaders, today they would be described as toxic leaders, in Matthew 23:4,

“They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.”

This is why Peter reacted so strongly when some Pharisees who had become Christians were demanding that Gentile believers be circumcised and keep all the specific Mosaic laws. And Peter said in Acts 15:10,

“Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we [Jews] will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they [Gentiles] will.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Jesus is offering us the burden that unburdens, the weight that is weightless, the bondage that breaks chains. Frederick Dale Bruner writes,

“Jesus realizes that the most restful gift he can give the tired is a new way to carry life, a fresh way to bear responsibilities… Realism sees that life is a succession of burdens; we cannot get away from them; thus, instead of offering escape, Jesus offers equipment.”

His yoke. His yoke is a restful tool for bearing the weight of living. And I think the primary reason it is so restful is because of the person with whom we are yoked. Look at verse 29 again.

“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.”

He is describing what we could call our yoke-mate. And this is, as you know, the only time Jesus pauses, opens up his heart and says, “Let me reveal my heart.”

And he describes himself in two ways, gentle and lowly. Gentle means meek and humble. And if you want to do a deep dive in this, I know many of you have read this, but Dane Ortlund’s excellent book, “Gentle and Lowly,” is a good place to begin. He explains,

“Jesus is not trigger-happy, not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated. He is the most understanding person in the universe. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger, but open arms.”

He is gentle. He is lowly in heart, which Ortlund defines as “socially unimpressive.” Jesus is saying, if I showed up at an elite party, the host would cringe. The people would say, what is he doing here? Jesus is the kind of person who sits at the lunch table with the teen who has no one else to sit with. He is not trying to impress anyone. He is drawn to those of us who struggle to get it all together. Isn’t this mind blowing? This is why it’s so important for us to see these two paragraphs together.

Verses 25-27 could be summarized, God is great. Look at his sovereign joy! And then, verses 28 and following could be summarized, God is good. And if you don’t believe God is great, then how can he give rest? He can feel bad for you, but he can’t really give rest because he’s not in charge. But if you don’t believe he’s good, you’ll think he’s up there, in charge, far removed, he doesn’t care about me. And so Jesus puts the two together, God is great, God is good, sovereign joy, and now I’m inviting you in as one who is gentle and lowly. Look how he ends, verse 30,

“for my yoke is easy…”

And that word easy, if you look through the New Testament all the times it’s translated is its most often translated “kind” or “good.” At times useful, not as often, but can be. My yoke is a kind yoke and my burden is light. It doesn’t mean it’s pain-free. Jesus said, you will have tribulation. But it’s light, in the sense, because we are yoked with one who keeps saying, give me your burdens.

Friday afternoon I was on a long prayer walk, and just in one of those times where feeling agitated, feeling overwhelmed, you know, those times where you’re trying to figure out, Lord, why? And as I was walking and praying, specific reasons, some things I’m burdened about in our family, things I’m burdened about for many of you, many walking through intense trials right now, and I found myself, fortunately I was in the middle of a wooded area, because I found myself physically having to just cast my anxieties on him because he cares.

I Peter 5:6-7, cast. I would bring up something that was weighing me down. And sometimes you have to verbalize it to the Lord like in the middle of nowhere being able to say, God, this, I’m deeply burdened for my wife’s health, I’m deeply burdened for naming specific families and being able to just physically do this. God, I’m giving this over to you. Fortunately, no one was around that I know. No one was watching.

But it is a stunning thing that the sovereign God of the universe is arguing with us to cast our burdens on him. He’s saying, come on! Burdens of sin, give them to me. That’s why I died for you. Burdens of sorrow, give them to me. Anxiety, cares, shame, give it to me. That’s why he can say my yoke is a kind yoke and a light yoke, not that we’re not going to go through horrific things, but we can continually cast it off. Here’s the question: will you come?

We’ve received an invitation. Will you come? And he doesn’t just want an RSVP. He wants us to come. Now. Come. We tend to procrastinate. We forget we want to keep our options open. As Americans, we don’t like to hem ourselves in.

The Puritan pastor, Thomas Goodwin, who lived from 1600 to 1680, wrestled with this question a lot. Why don’t we come? And he concluded this way,

“That which keeps men off is, that they know not Christ’s mind and heart… The truth is, he is more glad of us than we can be of him.”

He said if you really know his heart, he’s more excited about you coming than you’re excited about coming. How do we know that? Well, he’s demonstrated his love for us. He came. He died. Think about it. He literally knows what it’s like to be buried under your burdens. He was literally buried. Not a lot of us can say we’ve been physically buried under the ground. He was buried, and he rose.

That is my heart for you, Jesus is saying. And so then, Thomas Goodwin concludes,

“O therefore, come in unto him. If you knew his heart, you would.”

“If you knew his heart, you would.” Goodwin is saying the only possible reason someone would not come to Jesus is they don’t know his heart. They believe lies about his heart. He doesn’t need us. Verses 25-27, he is great. He loves us. Verses 28-30, he is good. So will you come?

And I think this means a couple things to us today. One, for some of us, we have not yet repented and believed. Meaning, stake in the ground, as for me, I’m rejecting my way, following Jesus, rejecting my sin, trusting Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. Some of us need to come and believe today. That’s the invitation.

And then for others of us who have repented and believed, we’re carrying burdens that he is saying, would you come to me and give them to me? I want to bear your burdens for you. You’re trying to navigate life as if we’re at odds with each other. As if I’m out there somewhere. I’m here now for you. Will you come? Will you cast your sin and your sorrow on me?

Let’s take a moment and just wrestle with that question for a minute. What would keep me from coming in either of those cases, to believe on Jesus and become a follower of Jesus, or if I am a follower of Jesus, to hurl my cares, my sin, my shame, the thing that weighs me down, the anxieties, the fears, to cast it all on him today? What would keep you? Take a moment, talk to him, and I pray nothing will keep us. And then I’ll pray in a moment.

Father, we don’t want to be like Capernaum — presumptuous, thinking we know, we got this. Give us humble hearts so that we might hear and respond to your invitation. We pray for those who are wrestling with their sin, clinging to things that will only suffocate the life out of us.

Father, please, by your Spirit, give us grace to release, give those over to you. We pray for those who are carrying hurts, resentments, fears, sorrows. You’re saying come, come give those to me. Burdens for people we love, you’ve got to give those to me. Thank you for being Lord of heaven and earth and yet coming to us so that we can come to you. Father, please draw us now. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.