5) All who labor and heavy laden are invited
The God who says “no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father”[1] is the very God who says “come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”[2] On the one hand, the invitation extended to “all who labor and are heavy laden” is incontrovertibly genuine and the Lord Jesus Christ guarantees it by the promise of “rest.” We know that none of the God’s promises can miscarry, for when He swore by Himself to bless and multiply Abraham, He certainly honored the oath at His appointed time (Heb. 6:13-16). We can therefore, take the Lord Jesus Christ at His word when He promises “rest” to those who come to Him. It is such a gracious thing that the one you have offended is the very person who invites you to Himself. What would you do with such an undeserved opportunity? Would you harden your heart to Him and refuse to come to Him? Surely rejecting such an opportunity is like taking the wrong route and refusing to go back to the right one even after been warned that hyenas will enjoy you as a delicacy on the stray path. So, do not harden your heart but come to Christ that He may give you eternal rest. On the other hand, it is indispensable to note that the role of the Father in granting the “coming” is incontestably true. First, those that will come must acknowledge that they “labor and are heavy laden” with sin as we already saw and that their expedition to save themselves by works is only futile (2 Tim. 1:9). Yet they will by no means do so by their own human ability or will. God Himself must send His Spirit into their hearts to undertake a cardiac surgery and to bring it [the heart] to a point where it is convicted of its state of utter sinfulness and the desperate need, that is, to be created anew. In other words, God must diagnose the heart and not just recommend a heart transplant but actually perform it by Himself. It is not a case that requires mere prescription of some painkillers or antibiotics. It is a matter of transplant else the patient dies. Therefore, in talking about acknowledging that you “labor and are heavy laden” I mean that the Holy Spirit must work in your heart to bring it to a point where it is humble enough to listen to God’s verdict upon you that you are a sinner who—unless He intervenes—remains under His just and righteous wrath, not for a short period but eternally. We know that the proud will die in their sins for they will be rejected by God but grace unto salvation will be granted to the humble. The Holy Spirit must therefore, humble that proud heart the way it did on the day of Pentecost when Apostle Peter preached and his listeners were pricked or cut to their hearts. Secondly, you must realize that rest from your labor [of sin] is only found in Christ Jesus. Again, you cannot do this on your own volition because the message of the cross will only seem to be foolishness to the one who hasn't been given a new heart. To the Jews, such a message—that the promised and long awaited Messiah who would come to save them ended up dying a horrible and despicable death—was a stumbling block. Humanly speaking, it is difficult to comprehend that the one who is sent to rescue you and reign over your enemies ends up being killed. It is similar to watching a movie in which the hero or star ends up being killed and not just being merely killed, but being subjected to a horrendous and excruciating death. To the Jews therefore, it seems as though Christ was such a mirerable loser when He died and they were not prepared for that. Therefore, to them, things didn’t add up at all and it all turned out to be a bitter pill to swallow. To the Gentiles or Greeks, such a story was far from being good news at all. To them, this would only sound to be a fairy tale that should be told to little children as a form of entertainment or to send babies to sleep after their mothers have tirelessly and fruitlessly rocked them all day long. It sounded both ludicrous and paradoxical to them to talk of the death of a savior as it still sounds today. For how can a savior die? Death and savior are two concepts that are alien to each other. They are diametrically opposed. It is therefore, at this point that God must [divinely] intervene to show the sinner the horribleness of his sins in the death of Christ on the cross. Christ’s crucifixion was a curse laid upon Him by God on behalf of the sinner because he [the sinner] is under the curse of God. It is the sinner who deserved the death that Christ died, for Christ never sinned. Christ didn't deserve to die. He only died because He was both willing and able to on behalf of the sinner or to put it in another way, He became as a substitute and took the place of the sinner. At the same time, God must powerfully intervene to show the sinner how Christ’s death was a means of completely abating His wrath in order for reconciliation to be accomplished. The only way through which the sinner can be forgiven is by settling the debt that he owes to God. Yet in and of himself, he doesn’t have the capacity to do it. This is why it was necessary that Christ should die-to completely and satisfactorily settle God. This is where God must send His Spirit to the sinner's heart to make it understand all these accomplishments through Christ. Otherwise, all these things would only be a stumbling block and foolishness to the sinner as was the case with the Jews and Gentiles respectively.We shall go yonder in these truths in our next segment.
