An Invitation to God's Grace

TITUS 2:11-14 “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”

LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!

“O Praise the Name”

Words and Music by Anastasia

PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS

Father, thank You for loving us! Rebels who ran from Your will for so long. Yet because of Your goodness, You pursued us and saved us! Thank You for Your grace! Thank You for Your mercy! Thank You for Your forgiveness! Thank You for giving us the ability to follow You and live this ChristIan life. We adore You Lord, Amen!

“Death was Arrested”

Words and Music by Hillsong

“King of Kings”

Words and Music by Hillsong

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS

Lord, we long to hear from you today. We long to open Your Word so that we may hear You speak into our lives. Teach us today Your glorious truths and help us to understand the depths of Your grace and mercy. Convict our Hearts, open our minds, and move us so that we may never be the same.

SERMON

Introduction

Read the whole parable

When Jesus spoke of God’s kingdom, he spoke with authority. And He did so because He is the King of Heaven! Jesus came from heaven to earth to tell us about it. If there was any reliable source about life after death, heaven, and hell it was certainly Jesus! So when we Jesus tells these parables of truth, we must listen and take it to heart!

This parable is about the gracious invitation to come to be a part of His Kingdom forever beginning right now! It is a call too all of us, and a description of the different responses to that gracious call.

In this parable Jesus forces us to ask: “If this parable is about everyone, I must fit here somewhere. Which character in the story represents me?”

So I want each of us as we study this parable today to ask ourselves, which character am I? And will I leave today knowing my destiny and be satisfied with it?

Matthew 22:1-2 “Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.”

IDENTIFY THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN THIS PARABLE

The King

This is once again a reference to God the Father

Notice He has a Son

He also has authority over men to invite or expel them from His wedding

He also commands an army to carry out His will

He has slaves and servants that do whatever He asks of them

The Son

This once again represents Jesus

He is the son of the King

He is having a wedding banquet prepared for Him

The wedding Banquet

This represents a day that is coming for the saints who will sit at the table of our Lord and feast with Him

This will be at the end of this age, when the sky is rolled up like a scroll, and death will be eradicated.

This will be when the saints are resurrected and all believers from this age will be gathered together and the greatest homecoming feast in the history of mankind.

Isaiah spoke of this 700 years before Christ came:

Is 25:6-8 “The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine. And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, Even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow up death for all time, And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken.”

Revelation also speaks of it after the tribulation period

Rev 19:7-9 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he *said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ ” And he *said to me, “These are true words of God.””

Church there is coming a day when we will leave this place and be seated at a great table, and feast with our God and King Jesus Christ!

There is a grand celebration coming for the followers of Jesus!

Can you imagine sitting at the marriage supper with the Lamb of God?!

No more sin

No more dying

No more sadness

No more lostness

No more fighting, or pain, or worries, or troubles

And forever in the manifest presence of Jesus Christ

Can you imagine that day!?

And it is coming!

Isaiah said, “for the Lord has spoken!”

The angel said to John, “these are the true words of God”

Not all those who are invited are willing to come

Matt 22:3-6 “And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come.” Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.” “But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them.”

Explanation

Now we need to remember this parable was spoken to the Pharisees. And Jesus was not only addressing the Pharisees but also the Jewish people as a whole who were standing around listening

So the application here is to the Jewish people to whom the Messiah came, and they wanted nothing to do with Him. They were invited to follow Him, they were invited to believe in him, yet they refused to acknowledge that He was the Messiah.

And notice also the reason: “one went to his farm and another to his business, and the rest abused his slaves and killed them”

Who are the slaves?

The slaves are the prophets who were sent to call God’s people to repentance

The slaves are those who pointed forward to Christ and proclaimed the coming Messiah

Over and over again in the OT, the Jews hated and even killed God’s prophets whom he sent to them, to call them back from their sin.

Bridge

But why did they not come to the banquet? Why did they ignore and abuse the messengers of God

One went to his farm and another to his business

How familiar does that sound in our world today

I can’t tell you the number of people we encounter day after day who care nothing about eternity, salvation, hell, sin ALL because they think they have better things to do

Application

There is nothing more important than the spiritual condition of our souls

Jesus said, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (mark 8:35-37)

In other words is anything more important than your soul?

What are we willing to trade for our souls?

If you are here this morning, and your mind is not on these kingdom truths then this would apply to you!

If you are here and you are thinking about the potluck, or your business engagements you have this week, or what you are going to do when you get home today THEN YOU MUST WAKE UP!

You must see that you are placing a higher priority on the lesser things of this world, and you are in danger!

What is your response when God invites you to join Him?

Do you look for excuses as to why you can’t?

Do you try to ignore His invitations?

Or does excitement fill your heart?

Our response to God’s invitation will have serious eternal consequences

Look what the king does when they refuse the invitation

Matt 22:7-8 “But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. “Then he *said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.

Explanation

The King is furious!

So he sends out his armies to destroy the murderers and their city.

More than likely, this is a reference to Jerusalem that was destroyed in 70 AD by the Roman’s.

They murder Jesus, so God brought judgement upon them by way of the Romans.

But the king also declares that those who turn down the invitation are not worthy To come

In other words, since they rejected the King, He rejected them

I want us to see how gracious this King truly was in inviting them

They received no less than three invitations to come

The first announcement was given prior to the parable. Notice the slaves were sent the first time “to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast”

But after that, the King sent out another call but this time with a description of all the glorious food that was ready to be eaten.

And despite all of this, they still refused to come

What would you do?

If you invited someone over and over to your dinner party? And they refused to come not once, not twice but three times?

You would probably look for another guest..

And that is exactly what the King does. He takes away their invitations and gives them to others.

Bridge

The only way you and I can come into the Kingdom of God is by way of Invitation!

John 6:44 ““No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

John 6:65 “And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.””

It is unbiblical to think we can step in anytime we want, or live a life of Christlessness, and right before our departure from this world get saved.

NO ONE COMES TO KINGDOM UNLESS HE IS INVITED!

And if we continually reject the invitation there will come a point when God stops inviting us

It is an insult to God when those invited to such a lavish feast refuse to come

And God will only allow so much rejection, before He finally and sometimes permanently rejects us

The King Extends His Gracious Invitation to all kinds of other people

Matt 22:9-10 “Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ “Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.”

Explanation

The King is still wanting to have His celebration feast!

So He sends His slaves out into the highways to invite as many as they can find to come to the feast.

And they come, and the dinner hall is now filled with guests

Now this is a picture of God rejecting the Jewish people because they rejected Jesus.

And the Kingdom of God is opened up to the Gentiles

All of us in here are Gentiles

And so we should be saying Amen at this point, that we have been invited to the Kings feast!

But also notice the dinner hall is filled with “all they found” and “both good and evil” guests.

What does this mean?

It means God invites us to come to Him regardless of our deeds or worthiness

It means to the Kingdom of God is opened up to outcasts and sinners

Those who are rejected by society, the downcast.

It means God does not invite people based up their “goodness”

Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost”

Jesus came to save women

Jesus came to save the poor

Jesus came to save the unclean

Bridge

We must not think we have get ourselves clean before God will call us

God calls us to follow Him in the midst of our sin!

The invitation to come to Christ is right where we are!

It is a call to repent of our sin, and turn to Him, and give our lives to Him

None of us are good!

Rom 3:10-18 “as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”; “Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

None of us has what it takes to follow Him

We do not have what it takes to follow His commandments

That can only come from Jesus, and it is given to us as a gift of grace

But there is one final detail we must understand:

Those without proper wedding garments will be expelled and punished

Matt 22:11-13 “But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he *said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. “Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Explanation

When the king has His celebration, he expects those coming to be properly dressed.

How embarrassing would it be for us to throw a party and someone come with inappropriate clothing

There is a dress code in heaven! We must not think we can come before the king wearing whatever we like!

AND Everyone will be inspected By the King To be sure they have the proper garments.

What are the wedding garments?

These garments represent righteousness. They represent purity.

Revelation 3:4–5 NASB95

‘But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. ‘He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

We are all guilty sinners before God! “There are none righteous, no not one!”

We are all born with soiled garments!

No matter how much we sin, we all sin, therefore we are all unclean!

And there is nothing that we can do to clean ourselves us!

So if any of us show up with our good deeds, our church membership, our tithing record, our Bibles, our baptism yet still wear soiled garments we are going to be expelled!

So how can we find these garments?

Notice Jesus said, “they will walk with Me in white”

The only way we can have the proper garments is to walk with Jesus NOW!

It means to follow Jesus now!

It means to give our lives to Jesus right now!

It means to turn from this world and make Jesus the priority now!

It means to repent of our sins, turn from our wickedness and live live for God!

The wedding garments reprints the righteousness of Jesus

Our righteousness is not enough!

We will be turned away if we are trusting in ourselves!

We will be punished if we show up with filthy garments

Notice the man examined by the king

This man represents a superficial response to God’s invitation

His life has not been changed by the invitation to come

He was not prepared to meet the King

He was still living in the filth of this world

He was unworthy because He never truly turned to Christ to be clothed with His righteousness.

When a man says, “I have done the best that I can” it often signals that he is trusting in his own good deeds to save him

When a man claims his stake at the wedding is based on anything other than the saving grace of Jesus Christ, he is in trouble

It is Jesus and Jesus only that can make us presentable before the king

And Jesus also transforms us from the inside out

Outer darkness is hell

Claiming to belong at the wedding feast while refusing to wear the correct garments was like the nation of Israel claiming to be God’s people but refusing to live for him.

‘It is Like the wicked tenants who deserved “a wretched end” (21:41), so this impostor at the banquet found himself tied up and thrown outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth—

“Weeping and Gnashing of teeth” is a description of hell.

Salvation includes two parts: divine sovereignty and human responsibility

Matt 22:14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Explanation

Those who are called are those who are invited.

To reject God’s invitation is to summons God’s punishment.

Not all those who accept God’s invitation, truly repent and turn to Christ.

A superficial response of repentance and faith will receive the same punishment.

Those who are chosen by God are those who hear the invitation to repent of their sin, and follow Christ by faith

They will be those who truly walk with Jesus and trust Him with their lives

They will be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus, and be able to stand before the King

Salvation includes an invitation from Gof, and the proper response from us.

Both must take place, or we cannot be saved.

Conclusion

God graciously invites us into his kingdom through the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom.

But entrance requires repentance, faith in Jesus as Lord, commitment to do the Father’s will as expressed in the teachings of Jesus (7:21), and the character and behavior that displays this repentance, faith, and devotion.

Which character are you in this story? The wise man or woman will make an accurate judgement of himself. let’s do that now.

~PRAYER~

RESPONSE

PUBLIC INVITATION

“Worthy is the Lamb”

Words and Music by Hillsong

OFFERING

We will now worship the Lord through our tithes and offering.

BENEDICTION PRAYER

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