Are you coming to the banquet?

11-03-24

Are you coming to the Banquet?

Luke 14:12–24 (ESV)
¹²He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. ¹³But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” ¹⁵When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” ¹⁶But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. ¹⁷And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ ¹⁸But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ ¹⁹And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ ²⁰And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ ²¹So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ²²And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ ²³And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. ²⁴For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ”

A parable to ponder…

• Context
  • Teaching on the narrow door (Many won’t be able to enter, when the master arises the door will be shut , many from far off will dine with God while those who should have been there will not)
    • A lament over Jerusalem (You were not willing )
      • Dining with a ruler of the Pharisees on the Sabbath (This Parable)
    • The cost of discipleship/Salt without taste (God must be , count the cost/ enhance and preserve otherwise )
  • The lost sheep/coin/son (Those that are lost and don’t know how to get back, those that don’t know they are lost, those that have chosen to stay out)
• Dining with the ruler of the Pharisees
  • Difference between charity and
  • Earthly vs Heavenly rewards

Matthew 6:1 (ESV)
¹“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

• Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!
  • Assumption of position and

Matthew 7:21–23 (ESV)
²¹“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

• The Parable
  • The banquet

John 6:35–37 (ESV)
³⁵Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. ³⁶But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

• • The Master
    • God
  • The guests
    • Those who should have been first (Jews carrying and teaching God’s word. Those to the people)

Jeremiah 8:8–13 (ESV)

The excuses

• • • The cares of
    • The cares of
    • The cares of

Matthew 10:34–39 (ESV)
³⁴“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. ³⁶And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. ³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

• • The poor, crippled, blind and lame
    • The lowly, unexalted, unexpected (still Jews)

Luke 18:10–14 (ESV)
¹⁰“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ ¹³But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

• • Highways and hedges
    • Those outside the family of Israel;

Isaiah 49:5–6 (ESV)

• • The Master’s house
    • Heaven/The
    • How full can it get?
    • Who be let in?

Proverbs 1:24–33 (ESV)

The Servants

• • • Those who carry the invitations ()

Mark 16:15–16 (ESV)
¹⁵And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. ¹⁶Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

• • • They don’t question God’s choices of who is invited
    • They

Acts 17:17 (ESV)
¹⁷So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

Acts 18:4 (ESV)
⁴And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.

Acts 19:8 (ESV)
⁸And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

What should we take from this?

1. Don’t let the things of this life keep you from …

Matthew 6:19–34 (ESV)

1. If you have received an invitation, you are now an invitation …

2 Corinthians 4:13–15 (ESV)
¹³Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, ¹⁴knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. ¹⁵For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.