The Invitation of Jesus

The Story of Invitation

God is a God of invitations. Virtually every book of the Bible could be summarized with one command in response to who He is: “Come to God.” The contents of each book either are saying it, implying it, or wanting you to come to the conclusion in light of what was written.

To be sure, when I say invitation, I don’t mean that God is a “take it or leave it” type of God. His invitation is a kingly command. It comes with the highest of authorities. It contains the most wondrous of destinations. It has the utmost aroma of love to it. To reject this invitation is a death sentence. It is an offense to His glory, to His reward, to His grace, to His love, and to Him. Rejecting God’s invitation is rejecting God. It is the epitome of foolishness and wickedness. To accept this invitation is life in the highest sense.

God created with an overflowing invitation for man to have a relationship with Him. He was the One who initiated that relationship. Even immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, God quickly invited them to come to Him for covering. As we trace the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we see that it is God inviting sinners over and over to come to have fellowship with Him even as He draws near to them.

Think of the story of Moses. God initiates the invitation. He sees His people in captivity and bondage and He sends Moses to “invite” them out into the wilderness to live with Him. The story of Joshua is similar. We see a people who don’t have a home. God is still passionate about His invitation for them to come and dwell with Him not merely in a land but in a relationship.

The story of Judges and Ruth shows what inevitably happens to us when we reject such an invitation. Nevertheless, this didn’t take away God’s heart for His people. The story of David, Solomon, and the history of Israel and Judah reveals the same message. God is inviting His people into a covenant relationship with Him. Even when He removes His people from the land there is still a covenant promise in Jeremiah 31 that God has not forsaken His people. Ezra and Nehemiah, Zechariah and Malachi were all calling the people to return to God. It’s an invitation!

Then, it “seemed” as if God didn’t care. Silence filled the prophetic office. The covenant appeared to be nullified. Silence vibrated through the spiritual air. Was God finally tired of inviting His people?

The Inviting God in the Flesh

Here is where we meet Matthew 11:28. Remember who Jesus is. Jesus is the God of the Old Testament in the flesh. He is not a different God. How serious was God about inviting His people into a relationship with Him? He was so serious that the Son took on flesh and was born of the virgin Mary into poverty. In other words, He invited Himself into our world.

He went from the throne to homelessness. He went from a crown of glory to a crown of thorns. He went from unapproachable glory to being spit upon while carrying His cross. In other words, He invited Himself into our world.

It’s this Jesus in Matthew 11:28 who sounds exactly like Isaiah 55:1 when He says, “Come.”

Why does a President, Governor, or Mayor invite someone to a meal or a meeting? Most of the time, it is to get business done or for their own public appearance. The invitation goes to someone who is important or to someone who can further their cause or power. Even if one of these men or women invites someone they don’t agree with, it is still for their political purpose and pursuit of peace.

When is the last time you heard or saw someone in one of these offices pull up in their limousine to a downtown gas station and invite a homeless man to come to eat an extravagant meal? When is the last time you saw someone in one of these offices go to the lowest of the low or the societal reject and ask to be their friend? If this happens once or twice, you might read some heart-warming news stories. If this happens consistently, you will probably begin to be suspicious or get worried about the competency of the person in power.

But, this is exactly what Jesus does. From the moment He started His public ministry, He was constantly inviting poor sinners to come to Him. He was tenaciously tender in His invitations to the worst of the worst. “Come” must have been one of Jesus’ favorite words.

Authoritative and Gracious

The marvelous feature of this invitation is that out of his overwhelming authority (v. 27) Jesus encourages the burdened to come to him because he is “gentle and humble in heart.”

D.A. Carson

Matthew intends to paint the picture of a Jesus who is the King of Kings and also someone who is the most approachable Person in the history of humanity. He wants to show you someone of such unrivaled authority and yet unimaginable grace. It’s this Jesus who we see go from preaching the Sermon on the Mount that leaves people astonished at his authority (7:28-29) to coming down the mountain to touch an unclean leper.

Matter of fact, the leper cautiously comes and kneels down before Jesus and takes a gamble to see if Jesus would be willing to heal him. Jesus meets this man at the location of his unbelief. “Lord, if you will (or, we could make it more clear: “if you are willing”), you can make me clean.” Jesus responds with, “I am willing; be clean.”

Jesus is pulsating with passion for poor sinners. If all you knew was the Old Testament, and you knew it well, then you would immediately identify this Jesus as being someone similar to that same God. Indeed, the Holy Spirit awakens us to show us that He is the same God.

Isn’t this what we see in Isaiah 55:1? “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” The same God of Isaiah is the same God here!

Jesus vs Others

Other religions say, “Go and do.” Jesus says, “Stop doing and come.” Other worldviews say, “Do good and then come.” Jesus says, “You are not good and will never be good. Therefore, come to me for I am good.” Even Christians who forget the heart of Jesus fall back into the default works-righteousness mode. They tell themselves, “I must keep up a performance so that Jesus will still accept me.” Jesus says, “You have failed more times than you even know. That’s why you must not stay away from me any longer and come to me.”

When you play the game of Monopoly, there is a “community chest” card you can draw that says, “GO TO JAIL. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.” Jesus is saying something similar. “Come to me. Come directly to me. Do not try to deal with your sins on your own. Do not try to beat yourself up enough over your sin before coming to me. Do not try to go and do enough good deeds before coming to me. Come directly to me. Waste no time in this. Do not linger. Do not hesitate. Do not worry about my response. Come to me.”

You know you’re growing in the Christian life the quicker you run to Jesus when you’re convicted of your sin, when you’re ashamed of your mistakes, and when you’re exhausted from trying to be good enough. Go to Jesus.

He is not saying, “Just come to this worldview.” Or, “just approve these doctrines.” Or, “just be apart of this community.” Or, “just pick up some of this grace.” He is saying, “Come to me.” The destination is Him! In Him, you will find all you need. If you miss Him, you miss everything. Everything outside of Jesus is counterfeit. Jesus is the real thing.

What Makes A Christian A Christian

The reason someone is a Christian is that they have Christ. Romans 5 tells us that our fundamental problem is that we were enemies with God. We were cut off. We were estranged. We were irreconciled.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us… For if while were were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.

Romans 5:6-8, 10

So weak that we could never make it to God. So ungodly that we didn’t even want God. Such sinners that we can’t be in His presence. Such enemies that the very thought of Him made us boil in anger.

This is when Jesus died for us.

But, you also see what happened because Jesus died for us, right? It’s because of Jesus’ death that He bridged the gap. This isn’t a bridge where we are able to come to God on our own power but a bridge where God comes to us! He is so eager to invite us to Him that He comes all the way to us to grab our hands to bring us home with Him.

In high school, one of the most interesting sights was during football and basketball games at half time. The home cheerleaders would almost always run across the field or court, grab the hands of the other cheerleaders and bring them over to their side to have a short time of fellowship with them. This is a picture of the invitation of God to us. He desires to be with us. He desires to bring us to Him. He won’t live without us.

This is the Jesus of Matthew 11:28. Jesus must have been overflowing with love when He said, “Come to me.” It was His most natural invitation.

The Heart of Jesus for You

This is Jesus’ heart for you. It’s an inviting heart, not a stingy heart. He doesn’t give you a spiritual stiff arm but extends His arms as wide as they were extended on the Cross. He is pleading for you to wait no longer. There are no steps before coming to Jesus. The first and only step is to come to Him! This He enables you to do.

If Jesus is truly good, if Jesus is truly wise, if Jesus is truly loving, then if He invites you to Himself He is saying that He is where you find all you need. Jesus would be sinning if He invited you anywhere else. Jesus would be the biggest fool if He told you to go to someone or something else. Jesus would be the most hateful being in all creation if He persuaded you to go to some other destination than Himself. Jesus is who you need.

20 Quotes from Dane Ortlund's New Book "Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinner and Sufferers"

This book is awesome. This is incredible Christology with heart-warming devotion. This is a book that anyone can read. I can’t say enough about it.

Let me tell you, these 20 quotes were hard to choose. I’ve underlined over 50% of the book with many times writing “wow”, “good”, or “stunning” beside something underlined. I’ll let these 20 quotes say more than I can:

1. “Meek. Humble. Gentle. 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.” p.19

2. “The point in saying that Jesus is lowly is that he is accessible. For all his resplendent glory and dazzling holiness, his supreme uniqueness and otherness, no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ.” p.20

3. “If we are asked to say only one thing about who Jesus is, we would be honoring Jesus’s own teaching if our answer is, gentle and lowly.” p.21

4. “What helium does to a balloon, Jesus’s yoke does to his followers. We are buoyed along in life by his endless gentleness and supremely accessible loneliness. He doesn’t simply meet us at our place of need; he lives in our place of need. He never tires of sweeping us into his tender embrace. It is his very heart. It is what gets him out of bed in the morning.” p.23

5. “Time and again it is the morally disgusting, the socially reviled, the inexcusable and undeserving, who do not simply receive Christ’s mercy but to whom Christ most naturally gravitates.” p.27

6. “When we are speaking of Christ’s heart, we are not so much speaking of one attribute alongside others. We are asking who he most deeply is. What pours out of him most naturally?” p.29

7. “It is impossible for the affectionate heart of Christ to be overcelebrated, made too much of, exaggerated. It cannot be plumbed. But it is easily neglected, forgotten. We draw too little strength from it. We are not leaving behind the harsher side to Jesus as we speak of his very heart. Our sole aim is to follow the Bible’s own testimony as we tunnel in to who Jesus most surprisingly is.” p.29

8. “The same Christ who wept at the tomb of Lazarus weeps with us in our lonely despair. The same one who reached out and touched lepers puts his arm around us today when we feel misunderstood and sidelined. The Jesus who reached out and cleansed messy sinners reaches into our souls and answers our half-hearted plea for mercy with the mighty invincible cleansing of one who cannot bear to do otherwise.” p.32

9. “He does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to him for fresh forgiveness, for renewed pardon, with distress and need and emptiness. That’s the whole point. It’s what he came to heal. He went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limitless supply of mercy and grace to his people.” p.37

10. “When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of his own deepest wishes, not against them.” p.38

11. “Our difficulties draw out a depth of feeling in Christ beyond what we know.” p.49

12. “He doesn’t handle us roughly. He doesn’t scowl and scold. He doesn’t lash out, the way many of our parents did. And all this restraint on his part is not because he has a diluted view of our sinfulness. He knows our sinfulness far more deeply than we do. Indeed, we are aware of just the tip of the iceberg of our depravity, even in our most searching moments of self-knowledge. His restraint simply flows from his tender heart for his people.” p.54

13. “Jesus can no more bring himself to stiff-arm you than the loving father of a crying newborn can bring himself to stiff-arm his dear child. Jesus’s heart is drawn out to you. Nothing can chain his affections to heaven; his heart is too swollen with endearing love.” p.55

14. “Look to Christ. He deals gently with you. It’s the only way he knows how to be. He is the high priest to end all high priests. As long as you fix your attention on your sin, you will fail to see how you can be safe. But as long as you look to this high priest, you will fail to see how you can be in danger. Looking inside ourselves, we can anticipate only harshness from heaven. Looking out to Christ, we can anticipate only gentleness.” p.57

15. “Fallen, anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to perceive reasons for Jesus to cast them out. We are factories of fresh resistances to Christ’s love. Even when we run out of tangible reasons to be cast out, such as specific sins or failures, we tend to retain a vague sense that, given enough time, Jesus will finally grow tired of us and hold us at arm’s length.” p.63

16. “We cannot present a reason for Christ to finally close off his heart to his own sheep. No such reason exists. Every human friend has a limit. If we offend enough, if a relationship gets damaged enough, if we betray enough times, we are cast out. The walls go up. With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resumé items that qualify us to approach him. Nothing but coming to him is required—first at conversion and a thousand times thereafter until w are with him upon death.” p.64

17. “If you are part of Christ’s own body, your sins evoke his deepest heart, his compassion and pity. He takes ‘part with you’—that is, he’s on your side. He sides with you against your sin, not against you because of your sin. He hates sin. But he loves you. We understand this, says [Thomas] Goodwin, when we consider the hatred a father has against a terrible disease afflicting his child—the father hates the disease while loving the child. Indeed, at some level the presence of the disease draws out his to heart to his child all the more.” p.71

18. “The sins of those who belong to God open the floodgates of his heart of compassion for us. The dam breaks. It is not our loveliness that wins his love. It is our unloveliness.” p.75

19. “Christ’s heart is a steady reality flowing through time. It isn’t as if his heart throbbed for his people when he was on earth but has dissipated now that he is in heaven. It’s not that his heart was flowing forth in a burst of mercy that took him all the way to the cross but has now cooled down, settling back once more into kindly indifference. His heart is as drawn to his people now as ever it was in his incarnate state. And the present manifestation of his heart for his people is his constant interceding on their behalf.” p.79

20. “He rises up and defends your case, based on the merits of his own sufferings and death. Your salvation is not merely a matter of a saving formula, but of a saving person. When you sin, his strength of resolve rises all the higher. When his brothers and sisters fail and stumble, he advocates on their behalf because it is who he is. He cannot bear to leave us alone to fend for ourselves.” p.91

For the Amazon link to the book, click here.

Here are some of the endorsements on the back of the book:

“I have read no book that more carefully, thoroughly, and tenderly displays Christ’s heart.” Paul Tripp

"Written with pastoral gentleness and quiet beauty, it teases out what twenty biblical texts contribute to this portrait of the heart of Christ, all of it brought together to bring comfort, strength, and rest to believers." D.A. Carson

"Dane Ortlund masterfully handles a treasure trove of Puritan wisdom and deftly presents it to the Christian reader." Rosaria Butterfield

“My life has been transformed by the beautiful, staggering truths in this book. Dane Ortlund lifts our eyes to see Christ’s compassion-filled heart for sinners and sufferers, proving that Jesus is no reluctant savior but one who delights in showing his mercy. For any feeling bruised, weary, or empty, this is the balm for you.” Michael Reeves

“Dane Ortlund writes about what seems too good to be true―the Lord delights to show mercy to you and to me―so he works very carefully through key texts and enlists the help of saints past. I was persuaded, and I look forward to being persuaded again and again.” Ed Welch

“Dane Ortlund helps us rediscover the heart of Jesus that is the very heart of the gospel. This delightful book opens up the sheer immensity of Jesus’s tender love for us. As you immerse yourself in Christ’s very heart, you’ll find your own heart warmed at the fire of the love of God. Ortlund opens up a neglected theme among the Puritans (in bite-sized chunks that won’t overwhelm you), where you’ll discover their grasp of the beauty of Jesus’s love. Your soul needs this book. I highly recommend it.” Paul E. Miller