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When the Queen died, I guess that you, like me, read some of the stories that showed more of the person behind the public face. And I love the story of how she once went into a tourist shop near Balmoral, dressed down in jeans and headscarf and the lady in the shop didn’t recognise her. And the Queen picked up this souvenir plate with her picture on, and said to the lady, ‘Do you sell many of these?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said the lady, ‘They’re very popular.’ And then she said, ‘You know, you look amazingly like her – you could get a job as her double!’ to which the Queen simply replied, ‘How very reassuring.’ And only as her majesty was getting back into the royal Range Rover did the penny drop with shop lady that she’d actually been looking at the Queen but hadn’t realised.

Well, this is the last of a Sunday evening series where we’ve been looking at Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, and in the bit Tom just read, Matthew says to us ‘Do you realise who you’ve actually been looking at?’ because just like shop lady was looking at the Queen but didn’t realise it, Matthew says ‘you’ve actually been looking at God’s Son become human (God’s Son ‘dressed down’ as one of us) but you may not have realised it, either. So I want to wrap up this series by asking where do you stand with Jesus? Who do you think he is? And how are you going to respond? So would you pick up one of the Bibles in the seats and turn to page 816, and that will get you to Matthew’s Gospel – which is one of the accounts about Jesus in the Bible, written by someone who actually saw and heard Jesus. And then would you look down to Matthew 11.27 which tells us pretty clearly:

1. Who Jesus thinks he is

Because he says (Matthew 11.27):

All things have been handed over to me by my Father [that’s God the 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.

So Jesus clearly thought he was the Son of God become human, and Matthew’s been giving us the evidence for that. And Jesus also clearly thought he was the only way we can come to know God, and not just know about God but actually come back into relationship with him. And Jesus says he’s the key to that:

…no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

So take my own father, for example; I’m the key to you knowing anything about him. Without me, you’ve no idea what he did for a living, what sport he was into, or what his passions were, but I can reveal that. The answers are he was a nuclear scientist, and an international squash referee; and one of his great passions was tidiness – which made him and Mum an interesting match, she being a great creator of entropy. So I’m the key to you knowing anything about my father. And in his lifetime, I could also have been the key to you actually relating to him – I could have taken you home to meet him. And Jesus was saying not only is he the key to us knowing about his Father; He’s also the key to us coming back into relationship with him, which is where his death on the cross comes in. And you don’t have to look into the Christian message for long to find out that Jesus’ death on the cross is absolutely central. That’s why many church buildings are in the shape of a cross, and why many Christians wear a cross, and why we have hot cross buns, and why, a while back, when the Church of England approached a marketing agency to come up with a new logo, the agency – surprise, surprise – came up with, you guessed it…a cross!

In fact, the whole reason God’s Son was born into the world that first Christmas was to die for us on the cross that first Easter. Why? Well, this is how a Christian friend explained the cross to me when I was just looking into what Christians believed. He said to me; “Imagine the light up there stands for God and this hand stands for you or me. Well, we were made to live in relationship with him, looking up to him for how he wants us to live”. And then he said “The trouble is we’ve all turned away from that, and consciously or subconsciously we’ve all said to God ‘I don’t trust you to run my life. I want to run it my own way’. And that’s the attitude the Bible calls ‘sin’.” Then this friend took a book and said “And imagine this book stands for the judgement we deserve for that wrong attitude and everything it leads to. Well that’s why we feel God is distant – and even that there’s a barrier between us and him.” But then he said “Now imagine this other hand stands for God’s Son become human. So he always lived perfectly like this – in relationship with his Father. So he never deserved anything like this. And yet, the Bible says that on the cross he willingly took on himself our judgement – so that on the one hand we could be forgiven our sin; and on the other hand, justice could be done on our sin.” And when Jesus rose from the dead to return to his Father in heaven, it was to show that that judgement had been dealt with once and for all, so that those who trust in Jesus will never have to face it themselves. So that’s who Jesus thinks he is and what he thinks he came to do, and I wonder what you think of that? But then in Matthew 11.28 you see:

2. The invitation Jesus makes

And from where he is, back in heaven right now, the risen Lord Jesus is still making this invitation to anyone who’ll listen. Look on to Matthew 11.28-30, where Jesus says:

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

So he’s speaking to people who he sees as burdened and worn out by what they’re trying (and failing) to do. And as we’ll see, that’s actually how he sees all of us. But Jesus was thinking first about people burdened by religion, because the religious leaders of his day had twisted the Old Testament into a religion of law – where you had to try and try and try to keep it, in the hope that sometime you could say “I’m OK. I’ve done enough” when in fact, you could never do enough – you could only fail. Islam is basically a religion of law, like that. And I once did a talk like this at an invitation dinner, and after I’d spoken, I got chatting to the woman next to me. She said her name was Aawa, that she was a Muslim, and that she thought we basically believed the same thing. So I said “No we don’t. We believe totally different things.” So she said “Why do you say that?” So I said, “Well, imagine on the way home we’re both knocked down by a bus and killed” (my usual light, after dinner banter). “What do you believe would happen next?” And she said “I’d face the judgement of Allah.” So I said “And how do you think that’ll go?” And she said “Well, I believe he’ll weigh my good deeds against my bad.” So I said “How do you think that’s looking right now?” And she very honestly said “Not good.” And I pushed my luck and said “And do you think that will change?” And she very honestly said “No.” And as we talked, it turned out she was living in quiet despair of ever being able to say ‘I’m OK. I’ve done enough.’

Jesus is speaking here to people like her who are burdened and worn out by the religion they’re trying (and failing) to live up to, and maybe that’s you. And maybe so far you’ve thought Christianity’s like that – just a religion of rules to try and try and try to keep, in the hope that sometime you can say ‘I’m OK. I’ve done enough.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. But if that’s how you see Christianity, you’ll think it’s just a burden. But this also applies to people burdened by trying to be moral; people who say, ‘I try to live a good life…’ – but who are very aware that they fail. And maybe that’s you. And it also applies to people burdened by trying other ways of being able to say ‘I’m OK’. ‘I can accept myself, now.’ So maybe your way is success. For example, when I worked in Cambridge, I knew a guy called Al who was in the university rugby team, and everyone envied him because they knew he could look in the mirror and say ‘Al, you’re OK. You’re a success.’ But the reality was very different, because I knew Al well, and he said there was the constant burden of trying to get into the team. And once you were there, there was the constant burden of trying to perform and stay in the team. And if you didn’t, you couldn’t look in the mirror and say ‘You’re OK. You’re a success.’

And if success is your way, what do you need to be able to say to the mirror? ‘You’re top of the class’? ‘You’re finally a PhD’? ‘You really are the best at…(whatever it is)’? Or maybe beauty and looks and fashion is your way and you need to be able to say to the mirror ‘You look great.’ ‘You look the best.’ ‘You’re wearing the in things.’ Or maybe that crucial relationship is your way and you need to be able to say to the mirror ‘I’m OK because he or she likes me, loves me, wants me.’ Well Jesus is saying here: ‘All the ways we try to find our identity outside relationship with God are ultimately a burden and wear us out because they fail to deliver what only relationship with God can.’ So look at Matthew 11.28 again:

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Which is rest from trying to do anything thinking that it’ll make God accept me. So this is the promise of being accepted just as we are. I remember meeting up with a friend called James. He wasn’t a Christian yet, but wanted to make up his mind about Jesus. So we looked at the Bible together once a week for a year. The deal was: I bought lunch and he brought questions, so as the weeks became months we moved to cheaper and cheaper cafes. And eventually I said “James, what would you say is holding you back from coming to Jesus?” And I expected him to say some of the things we’ve seen in Matthew over the last few weeks – about the cost of following Jesus. But he’d accepted that, and instead he said “What’s holding me back is that I’m not good enough, and never will be.” So I said “Join the club.” And I said, “The fact that you’ve not been good enough is covered by the way Jesus died to forgive all your past sins. And the fact that you’ll never be good enough has been covered by the way Jesus died to forgive all your future sins as well. So that’s not a reason to hold back. That’s a reason to come to him and trust him to forgive you and to keep forgiving you every day of your life.”

So that’s what Jesus promises us here – forgiveness and acceptance just as we are. And the question is: will you trust him for that? But coming to Jesus, becoming a Christian, isn’t just about being forgiven, because the point of forgiveness is always to restore a relationship. And the point of Jesus’ forgiveness is to bring us back into relationship with him, which is what Matthew 11.29 is about – it’s the call to accept Jesus as Lord. Look at Matthew 11.29-30, where the risen Lord Jesus says to us:

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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Now a yoke is something you use to carry a burden. And in Jesus’ day, it was used to picture the burden of the religion of law that the Old Testament had been twisted into. So when Jesus says (Matthew 11.29):

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me

He’s saying ‘I’m not offering you religion or rules. I’m offering you relationship with me – where we’re back to how it was meant to be, with me as your Lord and God, and you looking up to me for how I want you to live.’ So that’s what Jesus is calling us to here. And the question is will you have him as Lord of your life? Will you stop trying to run it your own way, and let him be in charge instead? And maybe you’re worried about whether that’ll really be your best life. Maybe you’re having an attack of FOMO right now (fear of missing out). And as we’ve seen over the past few weeks there is a cost to having Jesus as Lord. But look what Jesus says to reassure you. Matthew 11.29 again:

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart

And gentle (or meek) is the word for putting the interests of others above your own, lowly is the word for servants who lower themselves to the worst of jobs, and that’s what Jesus did when he died for you on the cross. And if you’ve begun to see that the Son of God loved you enough to do that for you why wouldn’t you trust him with the running of your life?

So back to the question I started with; where do you stand with Jesus? Imagine I were to draw a line of where everyone in this building stands with him right now. At one end there will be those who are saying ‘Well, I certainly haven’t accepted Jesus yet – I’m nowhere near that. I need to find out more, decide if this is really true, and work out what accepting Jesus would mean for me.’ And if that’s you, can I say thanks for being here; please keep coming – you’re always welcome. And I know the New Year seems ages away, but in January we’re running two courses for people wanting to find out more; Hope Explored is just 3 sessions, Christianity Explored is 6. And they begin with a taster and take-away evening (the food is on us) where you can try the first session and see if it’s for you. So if that might be for you, keep an eye on our website for details. And please let me or another church staff member know if you’d like us to send you details nearer the time.

So that’s one end of my line. And then at the other will be those who can say you have accepted Jesus. For some, you’ve known that for years and years. For others, maybe tonight’s clarified that you have come to trust in Jesus just recently – or that you’ve come back to him after being spiritually away. But you may be in the middle of my line; you know it’s true, and you know that today and maybe over the past weeks and months, Jesus has been calling you to respond to him. And I want to say wouldn’t today be a great day to do that – to accept this invitation to come to him? So I’m going to end with a prayer which would be a way of doing that for the first time. Let me just read it out first, so you can think whether you’d want to make this your own, personal prayer. I’ll say:

Lord Jesus, I’m sorry for turning away from you and living my own way. Thank you for dying for me, so I can be forgiven and accepted as I am. Please forgive me, please come into my life by your Spirit, and help me to live for you from now on.

Now you may be further back, and not ready to pray like that, or you may already have begun this relationship with Jesus, and you don’t need to begin all over again. But if you want to come to Jesus for the first time, you could echo the prayer in your mind to him, as I lead us now. Let’s pray:

Lord Jesus, I’m sorry for turning away from you and living my own way. Thank you for dying for me, so I can be forgiven and accepted as I am. Please forgive me, please come into my life by your Spirit, and help me to live for you from now on. Amen.

I know I’m into extra time, but let me just say two things to anyone who’s just prayed that prayer. One is: tell another Christian you’ve done that because you’ll find that helps you underline what you’ve done, and they can also suggest what would help you to go on from here. And feel free to talk to me or one of the other church staff, if you like. And the other thing is to take away a copy of this booklet; Why Jesus? because it’s about the step of coming to Jesus, accepting his invitation, and whether you’ve just done that, or are still thinking about it, you’d find it really helpful to read.