A Surprising Invitation to a Banquet

  • You are invited to be part of a supernatural kingdom with a fantastic celebration, the only condition being that you know you are a mess.
  • But God wants you to step up to his call to help him build it!
  • Stop telling yourself you are nothing and can’t do anything and say:
  • “I can do all things through him who strengthens me!”

 

Play Audio:

Video cover image by metalchris CC BY 2.0

Goal

To hear what Jesus is saying to each of us in this parable

The Banquet is Ready

The Banquet is Ready
  • Have you ever invited someone for a meal and they haven’t shown up?

Promise of a Banquet

  • Before we look at Jesus’ parable of the banquet:
  • There is a major Old Testament theme behind this story

Isaiah 25:6–9

  1. The LORD who commands armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain.
          At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine —
                tender meat and choicest wine.
  2. On this mountain he will swallow up
          the shroud that is over all the peoples,
          the woven covering that is over all the nations;
  3. he will swallow up death permanently.
     
    The sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from every face,
          and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.
                Indeed, the LORD has announced it!
  4. At that time they will say,
    “Look, here is our God!
          We waited for him and he delivered us.
    Here is the LORD! We waited for him.
          Let’s rejoice and celebrate his deliverance!”
  • When Jesus came, this prophecy began to be fulfilled
    • But it won’t be properly fulfilled till he returns and takes us to be with him

Luke 14:15–24

  1. When one of those at the meal with Jesus heard this, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will feast in the kingdom of God!”
     
  2. But Jesus said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many guests.
  3. At the time for the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’
  4. But one after another they all began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please excuse me.’
  5. Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going out to examine them. Please excuse me.’
  6. Another said, ‘I just got married, and therefore I cannot come.’
  7. So the servant came back and reported this to his master.
     
    Then the master of the household was furious and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’
  8. Then the servant said, ‘Sir, what you instructed has been done, and there is still room.’
  9. So the master said to his servant, ‘Go out to the highways and country roads and urge people to come in, so that my house will be filled.
  10. For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will taste my banquet!’ ”

based on NET Bible

  • This sounds similar to a parable in Matthew, but it was probably a different occasion

Explanation

  1. The Banquet is God’s wonderful kingdom
    • Free, undeserved, delightful, satisfying, fulfilling all our longings
  2. Those Invited are everyone who hears the Gospel
    • Some respond and some don’t -even though it is such a wonderful offer
  3. There is a surprising ending because it’s not who you would expect at a banquet
    • The people in God’s kingdom are often not those whom you would have expected

The Parable of the Banquet

  1. God’s grace is amazing and totally undeserved
  2. God is looking for those who will respond, and who will value his banquet
    • They won’t think all the trivial earthly things that surround them are more important
  3. The composition in the Kingdom in Jesus’ time was very different to what was expected
    • Similarly today, God is building his kingdom often from unlikely people

1. Amazing Grace

  • Eating food together was incredibly important in Jesus’ time, and it still is today
  • By inviting someone, you conferred honour on them
  • Go back to Isaiah passage

Isaiah 25:6–9

  • God himself invites us
    • he has personally prepared the feast
    • It is forever
  • No more pain, suffering or death
    • What an invitation!
    • And yet there are some people...

2. Responding to the Invitation

  • Is it conceivable that anyone should turn down such an invitation?
    • The tragedy is that people do!
    • Maybe even here today, someone is turning it down?
    • I am to busy with other things in my life right now
  • If that is you, I would urge you: Don’t delay, don’t make God angry with your refusal
    • The invitation is open now, take it quickly! -Don’t Delay!

3. Unlikely People

  • One of the most remarkable things about God’s Kingdom is that he chooses to build it out of the most unlikely people.

Luke 14 – Unlikely Guests

  1. …‘Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’
  2. Then the servant said, ‘Sir, what you instructed has been done, and there is still room.’
  3. So the master said to his servant, ‘Go out to the highways and country roads and urge people to come in, so that my house will be filled.
  4. For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will taste my banquet!’ ”
  • What were the occupations of those he chose as the Twelve Apostles?
    • Fishermen and a tax collector
    • uneducated and unlikely
    • became the pillars of the Kingdom
    • Acts 4:13 When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and discovered that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized these men had been with Jesus.
  • David: prophetic picture of Jesus. anointed, defeated Goliath, Built a kingdom, many psalms, gave the nation rest from enemies
    • So how did David build his kingdom?

1 Samuel 22:1–2

  1. David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him.
  2. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him.
    And he became captain over them. And there were with him about four hundred men.
  • They ended up being the “mighty men” who were the pillars of the kingdom
  • God turned a man called “Legion”, a demon-possessed man, into an evangelist
  • Can God still do that today?
    • God can take the most unpromising people and make them into the pillars of the church
  • Story of Gladys Aylward

  • Story of John Bunyan a tinker (repairs saucepans).
    • minimal education

  • Peter: church mailing
  • Story of prayer meeting to launch the little group that would one day become Newlife Church
  • Story of Betel
    • “When you are too weak to steal, come to us and we will look after you”
  • Do you want to be part of a supernatural kingdom, built in an impossible way?
    • You have to step up to God’s call!
    • Stop telling yourself you are nothing and can’t do anything

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”
Phil 4:13

  • Many people here who need to step out in faith that God can use them
    • Is that you?

1 Corinthians 1:26–29

  1. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
  2. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
  3. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
  4. so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Questions for thought

  1. What were the conditions for getting into the banquet?
    • How does that relate to us now?
  2. Why does God prefer to build his kingdom using people who are nobodies?
  3. How does this story make you feel?
  4. Do you think that we don’t step forward into what God has called us into?
    • Who has heard of the “impostor syndrome”?

Search

Categories

Tags