Father, to come and gather as Your people to sit under the preaching of Your word is to come and be fed. And so, Lord, as we read of feasts and banquets pointing to the second coming of Your Son, We also ask that You would feed us this morning, that You would give us a feast in Your Word. We ask that You would build up Your body according to the means You have ordained through the power of Your Spirit. We pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Well, at first glance, Luke 14 looks like a dinner party, but there's actually a lot more going on than this. I was thinking about it as we prepared and just thought, could you imagine doing what Jesus does in this scene? Someone invites you over to their home. It's doubtful He really knows these folks all that well. Probably knows of them. So an acquaintance invites you over to their house and you spend the evening prodding them and pushing them and undercutting their assumptions. It's a pretty bold thing that Jesus does in Luke 14. Jesus understands though the invitation wasn't out of the goodness of their hearts. They've invited Him specifically to put Him under the microscope. The beginning of the chapter in Luke 14, it's very clear they've brought Him there so they can see Him slip up, so they can complete their list of all the things they think He's doing wrong and spread their rumors. But Jesus flips the script. They've come to put Him under the microscope, but He's accepted the invitation so that He might examine them. He seizes their meal together to show them that the kingdom He's proclaiming, the kingdom of God, the kingdom that He's inaugurating, subverts all the values that they hold dear. That's what the Kingdom of God does. The Kingdom of God subverts, it inverts the values of the world. And so Jesus is challenging the ways that their worldviews have failed to line up with God's heart. And He's doing it all as they share a meal.
Now, that's a sobering thing to consider, especially when we think about the fact that these Pharisees are experts in the Law. They've memorized some of them, probably the entire Old Testament. Anyone who's a Pharisee has memorized huge chunks of it. So these people at this dinner party probably know their Bibles a lot better than most of the people seated here. And Jesus sits and dines with them and begins to show these people who have devoted their lives to a knowledge of God's Word all the ways that they're thinking about God, about who He is and His character and His Kingdom. Is out of step with God's heart.
This morning, we have an opportunity to pull up a seat at this table. We have an opportunity to pull up a seat and to ensure we're not making the same mistake. Luke 14 is driving home the point that as believers, as disciples of Jesus Christ, as citizens of this Kingdom, We are called to embrace the subverted values of this kingdom. That's what Jesus is challenging us with this morning. Will you embrace with your life the subverted values of the kingdom that the world doesn't understand?
The first thing he shows them, the first thing he calls them to, is that in the kingdom, people value humility. There's a premium placed on humility. Jesus is being radically subversive from the moment the meal begins. He notices that as they gather in the room and they're finding their way to their seats, it's not just people just casually sitting down wherever there's an open seat. 'Oh, no, no, you take this seat. I'll sit over here.' That's not what's going on at all. He notices they're eyeing each other up. They're measuring who's in the room, who's been invited, and then they're basically jockeying for position. Seated at the left and the right of the host are the positions of honor. People want to sit in those positions. And so they're trying to figure out how they can get the choicest seats.
Now, that's a strange thing. We wouldn't do that if we were sharing a meal with someone, right? A host invites you over, the assumption is probably, 'Well, I'll let his wife sit next to him.' Right? That's not how it worked in Jesus' day. These meals were highly stratified affairs. There was all sorts of meaning invested in them. So there's not cards sitting at the places on the table with people's names. It's not like a wedding where you've got reserved seating or assigned seats. But there might as well have been. Meals were a means of expressing social order. So the more important you were, the wealthier you were, the more politically connected you were, The more religiously influential, the better the seat at the table.
6 · Contemporary political illustration showing that status-based seating still exists today, giving modern listeners a frame of reference for the ancient practice
It was actually a really surprising thing as I was writing the last bits of the sermon yesterday. I read about the WikiLeaks that have happened from the Democratic National Convention, or the Democratic Party. And one of the things that's in those emails that have been leaked is the way they were arguing and bickering over how they should seat important donors of the Democratic Party next to President Obama at a banquet. So we have an idea. We have a frame of reference for how this works. Influential people expect that when they get invited to something, they're going to be put in influential places.
7 · Further exposition of the honor-shame culture intensifying the stakes of the seating arrangement, using the middle school cafeteria analogy to make it relatable
That's what's going on here. But in an honor and shame culture like Jesus', it's immensely, enormously more significant. These meals are where deals were made. It's where business is transacted. Networking happens. It's where you find out where you sit within the community. So Jesus sees the Pharisees at the start of the meal and he realizes they're basically acting like it's a middle school cafeteria. You know that free-for-all where it's really clear like where the cool kids sit? And if you're cool enough in the pecking order to sit at that table, you get to sit there. And if you're not one of the cool kids and you sit somewhere else, they're not going to join you there. So if a cool kid comes late and the table's full, he'll go sit somewhere else and then everyone gets up and joins him. That's what Jesus sees happening at the Pharisee's house. Middle school all over again.
8 · Exposition of Jesus' parable in Luke 14:8-10, narrating the humiliating experience of being displaced from a seat of honor to the lowest place
So Jesus tells a story to highlight their foolishness. Imagine a wedding feast, he says, and you've successfully jockeyed for position. You've gotten a good seat. You're near the power brokers. You look important. You look significant to everyone in town. You're on cloud nine. You can sense the envy of your peers. In particular, you've outmaneuvered some of your chief rivals. They are lower down. This whole meal will be you reveling in your apparent superiority. But then the host recognizes that someone has been improperly seated. There's someone who's a guest who is actually immensely important, and they're seated in the wrong spot. And the host, because he recognizes this will be an affront to his ability to host, it will be shame on him if he doesn't properly seat this person, pauses the entire feast, stops the entire affair, walks over to the honored guest seating in the low position, and says, 'Sir, you must come and sit in the honored seat.' And everyone stops and looks. And he brings the person over and everyone's avoiding eye contact and he stops behind you. You need to get up. You're in the wrong spot. Well, cloud nine just evaporated. That is what happens. So this guy in Jesus' story is left with the ultimate walk of shame because he got there early and everyone else was seated. Now there's no good seats left. Only option left is the lowest place. Essentially saying, 'You are the least significant. You are the most unimportant, unimpressive person in this room.'
9 · Transitional exposition acknowledging cultural distance while establishing continuity—we have different but equivalent status markers
Now, we don't live in the same kind of honor and shame culture as Jesus did, but we can imagine how embarrassing that would be. While we don't have our own seats of honor system per se, We do have our own means of showcasing importance, don't we?
10 · Extended personal story illustrating the subtle pride and sense of significance the pastor felt driving a borrowed luxury car versus his old Buick, exposing the universal human tendency toward status-seeking
This happened for me just this week. My car is in the shop, as my cars want to do. It's at that point where I've missed the tipping point. I should have sold it and I didn't, and now I'm just pouring money into this thing, right? You've all been there. So I knew I had to take the car into the shop, and then I had this brilliant idea. Michael Gimitti is going on a cruise to Alaska. In the past, they've let me borrow What do we call him? He's not little Michael anymore. Young Michael's Honda. And so I said, 'Hey.' I texted Michael. I said, 'Michael and Susan, could I borrow the Honda while my car's in the shop?' And older Michael texted me back and said, 'Why don't you borrow the Acura?' Huh. Well, if you're going to insist I take the Acura, of course. Far be it from me to take the Honda Pilot when the MDX is available. And so he gives me the garage code and I go over there and I get in. You know, it's got this sweet little key that's not even a key. It's just this little electric box. And so the whole week, I don't have to take out a key. I just walk up with this in my pocket. And as I approach, the car unlocks itself. And I open the door and I even set it up so it's like automatically going to my position in the seat. And so like the steering wheel like lifts up. I slide in. It slips down. The seat adjusts itself. I don't have to take the key out of my pocket. You know, sometimes you sit down, you forget, now you gotta dig. No, I just put my foot on the brake and push the button. Unlike my car, it actually starts every time. It's not like, 'Lord, I forgot the oil. My car's not gonna start.' That doesn't happen with this MDX. It just starts. It's this beautiful SUV. Unlike my car, all 4 windows actually function. The AC works. There's not this huge with a rusted gas cap on the side of it, just proclaiming to the world, 'This is a significant person.' No, this week I was driving the Acura MDX, and I could just sense it, I could feel it. I'd pull into QuikTrip and I'd step out, 'I'm significant.' 'I'm driving an MDX, not a 2000 Buick LeSabre with non-functioning windows and a rust spot.' And you just kind of feel that. You get a Root 44 Diet Cherry Limeade after the doubleheader softball game on Thursday night, and you're kind of excited for the lady to come out and deliver it to your Acura. I'm a big deal. I've got a little more status this week than I had last week.
11 · Theological claim that while status symbols are not inherently wrong, using them as a source of pride to establish superiority has no place in God's kingdom—yet pride constantly intrudes
You get the idea. Every culture has their status symbols. a seat at the table, a particular kind of house in a particular neighborhood, a designer purse, a certain kind of car, a country club membership, a bumper sticker proclaiming the accomplishments of your 5-year-old, right? There's absolutely nothing— there's nothing, don't hear me wrong— there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. Except when they become a source of inordinate pride, a way of establishing your superiority to all the rusty Buick drivers in the world. You people who are hardly worthy of sharing the road with me this week, but next week I'm going to be so angry if one of those MDXs cuts me off. I know you've got a little warning thing now on the side mirror that tells you I'm there even though you can't see me. So I know you're just doing it out of superiority. But we have this ability to find status in all sorts of things. Jesus underscores for the Pharisees, for us as we sit at the table, that pride is an ugly thing and that it has no place in the kingdom. And yet pride has this nasty way of nosing its way in, doesn't it?
12 · Historical illustration of how pride infiltrated the church through the practice of purchasing pews, where wealthy donors received permanent prominent seating with plaques
It wasn't that long ago, this might be hard to imagine if you're not familiar with it, it wasn't that long ago that many churches had the habit of allowing wealthy patrons, so wealthy givers, wealthy donors in the church to actually purchase their pew. So the wealthy people in the church would get the best seats and they always got to sit there. It wasn't just, well, The Dowdys always kind of sit right over here, and we just sort of know that. It's not that sort of tradition. It's like, no, the Dowdys purchased those seats. The Herreras purchased those seats. No one is allowed to sit there. These prominent seats go to these prominent givers. If you were a really good giver, maybe you could permanently purchase the seat for your family. Put a little brass plaque on the back. Wasink family seating. They are a big deal. Through this gift, we know they love Jesus more than the rest of you. You get the idea. The more money you gave, the better your seat in the sanctuary.
13 · Exposition of Luke 14:11 emphasizing the eschatological and divine nature of the humbling and exalting—this is not social advice but God's ordained judgment at the Second Coming
Jesus subverts this. Everyone, he says in verse 11, who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Now, this isn't just sage social wisdom. He's just not trying to say something really bright, or he's not trying to give you a little advice. Hey, I don't want you to be embarrassed at the next wedding feast you go to when you actually sit at the head table and you're not part of the wedding party. That's not what he's saying here. The passive voice of the verbs makes clear it is God who does the humbling and God who does the exalting. God has ordained that when all the chips are in, when everything is done and finalized at the Second Coming, those who have privately pushed themselves forward, He will humble. And those who in humility have put others first, He will exalt.
14 · Exposition clarifying that fake humility is as condemned as overt pride—Christ will personally expose both at His return
So the point isn't to put on a veneer of fake humility and hope that you get honored at a party. The point is the overtly prideful and the falsely humble will all be seen for who they are when Christ returns, and that Christ will be the one personally seeing to it.
15 · Application pressing the question of whether the listener's humility is authentic gospel humility or mere veneer, warning that false humility will be exposed in the last days
Now that's as sobering a word for us as it is for them. The reality that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble That's ignored in the halls of Washington, D.C. Few, very few, are the professional athletes who genuinely brace humility, the business execs who believe it and who serve from the front. But the real question this morning is, do you believe it? We all loathe the pride we see in our rivals. 'He's so arrogant. He's always shoving his success in my face.' But do we really just make a good show of protesting the accolades? What happens when we receive them and are offered? Is your humility the authentic humility of the gospel that recognizes who we are? 'While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.' Or is it the veneer of false humility that Jesus says will be exposed in the last days?
16 · Transition statement moving from the first subverted value (humility) to the second (valuing the least)
The kingdom values real humility. The kingdom also values the least.
17 · Exposition of the exclusivity of Pharisaic meals and how Jesus subverts the insider-outsider system by eating with tax collectors and sinners, reversing who belongs at the table
Jesus isn't done subverting things. He's not done making the meal really awkward, in other words. Now, like we said, these meals are highly stratified affairs. You figure out every time there's a meal with a lot of people who's important and what the pecking order is. They're also highly exclusive. The Pharisees are meticulous about the food laws of Leviticus. What you can eat, what you can't eat, who you can eat with, and who you can't eat with. Right? So these meals are the ultimate expression of who the insiders are and who the outsiders are. Jesus gets in trouble. Why? Because He's eating with tax collectors and sinners. You don't eat with these people. You don't share food with these people. They're out. God says they're living the wrong way. Well, Jesus subverts the entire system. He turns it on its head. As one author put it, it might be better to say He turns it inside out. He reverses the insiders and the outsiders. He's willing to eat with these sinners. And at His table, those sinners find a welcome place to sit.
18 · Exposition of Luke 14:12-14, explaining Jesus' instruction to invite those who cannot repay rather than exclusively inviting those who can reciprocate
So here He tells them, when you throw a party, don't invite your friends and your family and your coworkers and the wealthy guy down the street. They can repay you. Now, there's a sense in the way that it's written, He's not saying never do this. He's not saying, If you love Jesus, you will never eat with your mother again. That's not the point. Don't exclusively only ever invite your friends and your family and the people you're doing business with or the wealthy you're trying to suck up to. He says they can repay you. That's just tit-for-tat. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. Invite the people who would never even have the courage to ask or assume they could eat with you. Invite them, Jesus says. They can't repay you, but you'll be blessed.
19 · Cultural illustration of Ivy League eating clubs as a modern parallel to reciprocal networking meals, showing how meals are used to advance status and opportunity
Now, I kind of imagine at this point he's telling the story and it's been awkward and there's tension. There's maybe a couple scoffs at the table. What is this guy talking about? It's that unsettling to how they understand the world. How are you blessed by inviting the dregs of society? These people can do nothing to further you and advance you. This guy's a total kook. In the Ivy League, there's actually this practice. There's these things called eating clubs. There's something about the Ivy League, it's just sort of like this mysterious world, right? So you've got like those secret clubs, like the Skull and Crossbones or whatever they are. There's also these eating clubs at certain Ivy League schools. And these are eating clubs that are reserved for upperclassmen students. And you apply to them, and you get your spot reserved in them. And so the whole point is you are at the Ivy Leagues, right? Hobnobbing with these significant intelligent. And now you're only eating your meals as an upperclassman. Every day you only eat your meal at your eating club. So it's this mechanism to make sure that Every meal is an opportunity rich in intellectual conversation and business opportunities. Right? Hobnobbing with everyone else who's there at the Ivies with you. There's this sense of it's exclusive. You're going to get repayment. You pay your fee for the eating club, but you're building for the future, man. That guy you hung out with junior year at Princeton at the eating club, You might start a Fortune 500 company with him 10 years down the road.
20 · Theological claim defining genuine biblical hospitality as sacrificial love for those who cannot repay—involving real loss, no networking, and no reciprocity
Well, Jesus isn't banning this sort of thing. He's not saying you can't do that or be a part of that, but He's challenging the value we place upon it. It's not that we shouldn't have meals with our family or lunch meetings with a business associate. But we need to realize that when you do this, you have exhausted the benefit you'll get from it. Far better than dining in an Ivy League eating club. Far better than getting invited to share a table with Alex Gordon or an exclusive sit-down with the owners of Garmin and Cerner. Far better than that, Jesus says. Is to sit down with people who have no ability to repay you. The homeless person, utterly incapable of even helping to pay for the meal. This, Jesus is showing us, is what real hospitality looks like. It involves real loss, loss of status in this culture. That's what's happening when he's saying, 'Eat with those people.' You want me to damage my reputation to share a meal with that person? Real sacrifice, no social benefits, no kickbacks, no networking gained. What it is though, is actual genuine biblical hospitality. This biblical thing that involves fundamentally love for the stranger. Love for the sojourner. Love for the foreigner. Love for the other. Love for the person not like you, incapable of paying it back.
21 · Further theological development of kingdom hospitality with concrete examples: the newly married couple inviting the widow, the executive hosting the day laborer with equal generosity
Kingdom hospitality isn't about entertaining. It's about opening your home to someone so that you can open your heart to them. The purest form of hospitality isn't then when you have your best friends over for dinner after church. It's when you open your home to the newcomer who you've never even seen before. 'You want to come over after church? We don't really have anything planned, but we'd love to have you.' Or it's when you invite someone over for hospitality that you literally share nothing in common with. You're going into this knowing, 'I don't know if we're going to be able to carry on a conversation.' But I know that Jesus says we're called to love people in His name, and so we'll take the risk. It's like a newly married couple who, instead of continuing to grab Chipotle after church with another newly married or the other singles they've always hung out with, says, 'Let's invite the widow over and let's open our apartment.' and have her share a meal in the afternoon. It's the executive VP hosting the day laborer and going out and buying the same steaks that he would have bought if he was hosting his boss, saying, 'I'm going to bless this man. I'm going to bless his family.' That's the vision, the subverted value the kingdom shows us.
22 · Theological claim that kingdom hospitality requires eschatological faith—believing in eternal reward rather than earthly repayment
Living this way though, it requires great faith. It requires faith, Jesus says, in a better kingdom. Faith that repayment won't ever come in this life, but that it will come through eternal blessing when Christ returns.
23 · Extended exposition contrasting YOLO theology (atheistic this-life-only thinking) with Kingdom theology (resurrection-centered eternal thinking), showing how YOLO mentality undermines generosity
This is the difference, if I could kind of put it in kind of contemporary nomenclature. This is the difference between YOLO theology and Kingdom theology. YOLO, you only live once theology, and Kingdom theology. Now some of you are laughing because you are recognizing that term. You think it's weird that a 34-year-old pastor is using it, right? Some of you are chuckling because you want to pretend like you know what the term is and you don't know either. YOLO means 'you only live once,' right? It's this utterly atheistic statement. That's what it is. You only live once. Utterly secular statement. When you die, you're dead. You're worm food for eternity. That's what YOLO is saying. And so because that's the way things are, as you live this life that you only get to live once, You've got to do everything you can to experience pleasure and joy and excitement. I don't have time to have a steak dinner with the homeless person. I only live once! You see the notion? So you have people who live for the weekend. People who live for the next vacation. They live for something newer and better. We all have different temptations. I mean, there's a litany of things that you could fit into your YOLO vision. And I think a lot of times we don't even realize we have it. I've had conversations with people who I just walk away and I think, that was a believer just articulating without even realizing it that I live by YOLO, not I live by faith in the Son of God and the reality of His resurrection. Again, what's the YOLO dream? Is it a A house in Maui, on the Upper East Side, a cabin at Lake of the Ozarks, probably depends on your flavor and taste, right? Maybe it's got nothing to do with a house. Maybe it's one of those tiny houses they have on now. Some people, that's their YOLO dream. There's nothing inherently evil in any of those things. Nothing inherently evil in any of those things. Except when we start to live as though this life is the only chance you will ever have to experience them. How can I be generous to the poor? They can't reciprocate. There's nothing they can give me that's getting me closer to that dream.
24 · Theological claim that Jesus subverts YOLO theology with resurrection-centered living: embracing 'you only live forever' frees believers for radical generosity now
But Jesus challenges us. He subverts this YOLO dreaming. By telling us the blessing comes to those who embrace the mantra, 'You only live forever.' Blessing comes to the one who is so convinced of the resurrection, so convinced of the reward to come, that there's no loving of neighbor, there's no loving of the least that is too difficult or too great or too sacrificial now.
25 · Personal story of Pastor Mark Alderton whose conviction in the resurrection freed him from YOLO urgency about mountain climbing and career success, enabling him to leave a lucrative job for gospel ministry
When I was first a pastor, I thought it was a strange comment until I thought of it more later. One of the associate pastors in Minnesota was this man by the name of Mark Alderton. He's a guy, he was just a pastor's pastor. You'd walk by his office and he'd be just sitting there at his desk like, 'What are you doing, Mark?' And you'd look down and he's like, 'I'm praying through the church directory.' You know, just those kind of experiences. He was a pastor's pastor. And I remember him saying they love the outdoors. He lives actually in Colorado now and didn't intentionally go out there, but he said, 'I used to be just seized by this sense of, 'I gotta climb as many 14ers as I can before I die.'' And he's like, 'Then I realized there's gonna be a new heavens and a new earth. Forget 14ers.' I'm going to be climbing 50ers or whatever they'll be in the new heavens and new earth. But it gave him this freedom to leave an incredible job working for Guidant. This guy had patents. You know, some guys hang like, oh, here's my degree. He had patents, things he had created at Guidant, and he left it all for gospel ministry. YOLO had no control over his heart. He was convinced of the resurrection, and so no love of neighbor, no loving of the least was too difficult.
26 · Transition statement introducing the third and final subverted kingdom value: embracing brokenness
The final subversion is a call to embrace your brokenness. A call to embrace your brokenness.
27 · Exposition setting up the parable of the great banquet in Luke 14:16-20, explaining the cultural context of the double invitation system and the offense of refusing after RSVP
Excuse me. Jesus tells a story about a great banquet. Now, a banquet, a feast, that's one of His favorite images for the Kingdom of God. The invitations, He says as He tells the story, for this immense banquet have gone out far and wide. Many have been invited. So here's a couple things we know. The person hosting this banquet has a lot of money because it's a great banquet. So in other words, this is going to be a plush table. Right? The choicest foods. And the invitations have gone out far and wide. So he's putting a ton of food out and he doesn't care if tons of people come. He can pay for it. He can afford it. So at the time of the feast, he then sends his servant to announce it's time to attend. Now, the clear assumption is the people that he's invited, all these people who've said, 'Oh man, I want to be at that party.' They've RSVP'd and said, 'I'm coming,' the first time the invitations went out. And as is customary in this culture, the second time it goes out to let them know, it's just basically to alert them and remind them, 'Now you can come.' But it would be incredibly unusual, almost unheard of, to then say after you've RSVP'd, 'Well, actually, I'm not coming anymore.' This isn't a refrigerator culture. You throw a big feast and invite all these people because They're going to consume the food. There's no saving the leftovers.
28 · Exposition analyzing the three excuses in the parable, demonstrating their absurdity and offense—land inspection, oxen examination, and marriage all fail as legitimate reasons to refuse
But now they have the lamest excuses imaginable. Excuses that are a total slap in the face to this host who's invited them to the banquet. One guy says, 'Well, I bought some land, and so I need to look it over.' Who buys land and doesn't look at it first? Right? And even if you did buy it and you weren't wise enough to look at it first, You can't go to the banquet first. I mean, the land's not going anywhere. So that's lame excuse number 1. The other guy has 5 yoke of oxen. So the guy's bought 10 oxen. This is the guy who's got the 7-car garage, right? But they're all double deep. And so he's just bought 5 more cars. He's like, well, I've bought 5 cars. And now I need to go home. And I need to clean them and vacuum them. It's like, you've got 10 cars in your garage. You've got servants to do that. This guy's excuse is lame as well. And then there's the newlywed. 'I can't come because evidently newly married people no longer eat food.' What newlywed doesn't want to go to a banquet with their bride, right? You love doing that. I remember when Hannah and I first got married, it was so much fun to go to weddings and to look at them and think of your own and then to feast and then you dance and you're young. Oh, we don't eat anymore. It's silliness. There are these lame excuses that are totally offensive to the host.
29 · Theological interpretation of the excuses: material possessions and earthly affections become idols that prevent entrance into the kingdom when valued above Jesus
Each of them has an excuse that keeps them from the kingdom. The first two refused to enter the kingdom because their material possessions are more important. The last refuses because his affections are captured by something else. There's another love that's greater than Jesus. Now, Jesus isn't indicting our possessions or our affections. He's certainly not saying, 'Well, that newlywed guy shouldn't have loved his wife.' But He is warning us. Many will fail to enter the kingdom because they value these things more than Jesus.
30 · Exposition applying the parable to the congregation—all have been invited to the eternal feast, yet some reject it because earthly obsessions have captured their affections and they see no need for Christ
We, everyone in this room, have been invited to a feast. There's nothing accidental about that imagery. Jesus is teaching us, he's telling us heaven will be a place of eternal, perpetual feasting. Jesus offers a kingdom that has pleasures and rest and peace beyond anything we can possibly imagine. And yet some are so seduced by those YOLO obsessions, they have no appetite for Christ and for his kingdom. The reason they reject the feast, although they initially expressed interest, is that in their heart of hearts They don't see any need for it. This incredible feast with tables of food and libations, with people to celebrate, it's not nearly as neat as measuring out my ground I purchased. It's not nearly as important as hanging out with my stinky oxen. It sounds insane. And yet the world is full of people who God has invited. To the feast of the kingdom, and who in the insanity of their darkened hearts have said, 'I would rather live for my rusty 2000 Buick LeSabre.' Fill in the blank. They see no need for it.
31 · Exposition of the master gathering the broken and poor from the highways and byways, framing the gospel question: are you broken enough to recognize your need for Jesus?
So then the master sends his servants out to gather those who will come. And as Jesus tells the story, the servant goes out and the ones he gathered in would be scandalous to the Pharisees. He gathers in the broken and the lame, the poor and the needy, highways and byways. It's not like, oh, they went out on 435. No, highways and byways is like you're going to kind of sketchy places, bad neighborhoods to bring in the dregs. The point is simply this: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. But are you broken enough for Jesus? That's the point of the parable. Are you broken enough for Jesus?
32 · Extended theological claim defining the kingdom banquet as a banquet of grace purchased by Christ's blood, not earned by accomplishment—for the broken, poor, weak, foolish, dirty, lonely, and sinful
The great banquet of the kingdom is not a banquet of accomplishment. It's not a banquet of privilege. It's not a banquet of religious achievement. No, Jesus is inviting us, everyone here today, to a banquet of grace. 2 Corinthians 8:9, 'You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.' There is a great banquet and a great feast, and Jesus has purchased your invitation, purchased your place at the table with His own body and His own blood. The feast is not for the self-sufficient. The feast is not for the self-righteous. It's not for the prim and the proper. The feast is a banquet of grace for the broken. Broken, to make them whole. It's a banquet of grace for the poor, to make them rich. A banquet of grace for the weak, to make them strong. For the foolish, to make them wise. For the dirty, to make them clean. For the lonely, to bring them home. The feast is a banquet of grace for the sinner, to make them righteous.
33 · Exposition drawing on Isaiah 55 to reinforce the gracious invitation to the banquet—God offers free, satisfying food to those who recognize their spiritual poverty
The prophet Isaiah expresses God's generous invitation perfectly. Isaiah 55: Come, 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. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread? And your labor for that which does not satisfy. Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. He's calling us to a banquet of grace, a banquet more fulfilling and more satisfying than anything we've ever experienced. Jesus is calling us, 'Come to the feast, come to the table, hunger no more.'
34 · Application shifting from receiving the invitation to extending it—believers are called to be the servants who go out into the highways and byways inviting others
But there's also a servant in this story, isn't there? A servant sent out by the master to invite. It's not just an invitation to come and eat, to come and feast. It's also a calling for God's people, a calling to the redeemed to take up the clarion call for this banquet, to take up the master's heeding and to go out into the highways and the byways and to invite people.
35 · Hymn illustration from Isaac Watts capturing the wonder of being invited to Christ's feast and the missionary urgency to bring strangers home so all may sing God's redeeming grace
Conclude with this, it's a beautiful hymn by Isaac Watts called 'How Sweet and Awful Is the Place.' But it captures this sense of the feast Christ invites us to, to stir up our anticipation for it and to stir up our sense of willingness to go out. He writes this: How sweet and awful is the place with Christ within the doors, while everlasting love displays the choicest of her stores, the banquet table. While all our hearts and all our songs join to admire the feast, each of us cry with thankful tongues, Lord, why was I a guest? Why was I made to hear Thy voice and enter while there's room, when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come? 'Twas the same love that spread the feast that sweetly drew us in, else we had still refused to taste and perished in our sin. Pity the nations, O our God! Constrain the earth to come. Send thy victorious word abroad and bring the strangers home. We long to see thy churches full, that all the chosen race may with one voice and heart and soul sing thy redeeming grace.
36 · Closing prayer thanking God for the grace of being invited to the banquet and asking for enabling grace to live out the subverted kingdom values and to invite others into the feast
Would you bow your heads? Lord, it is a sweet and awful place to consider Calvary. And Lord, to consider how it is that we are here this morning hearing Your Word. Lord, to consider how it is that we have been recipients of Your grace, that we have been invited to this this banquet and to this feast, that we have been sealed with your Spirit and given the gift of faith. Lord, your grace and your mercy and your love are immense things. So Lord, we ask that as those who have heard the call and responded to it, Lord, we ask that you would send more grace now, that we could live according to these strange, subverted values of the kingdom. Lord, that we could love radically, love the least, love those incapable of repayment. Lord, that we could put on genuine humility. Lord, that we could live lives completely satisfied, completely hoping in the resurrection, so that the watching world would see by the way we live and how we spend and how we devote our time that we have been captured by a greater affection. Lord, we thank you for this banquet of grace. And Lord, we thank you that Jesus sits at the table with us, that he eats with us. But Lord, I also pray that for all of us here in this room, you would stir up a heart to go out, a heart to see others brought into this banquet. Lord, that we may with one voice and heart and soul sing thy redeeming grace. In your name, Jesus, amen.