Lessons over dinner. God's invitation. Luke 14:1-24 Part 3
Notes
Transcript
Text - Luke 14:1-24
Subject - Humility
Theme - Humble invitation.
Thesis - Jesus teaches that the way to truly honor God is through humble invitation—by humbling ourselves before Him and extending grace to those who cannot repay, reflecting God's inclusive love and invitation to all.
Principle - Christian, be humble and generous in your relationships, seeking to serve others selflessly and inviting those in need, just as God has graciously invited you into His kingdom.
Intro
Who enjoys a good feast?
Most all of us do.
Most of our holidays all often have food as a significant focus.
Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July BBQs.
What is better than a simple feast?
A feast with people you really love.
People you want to be around.
A good feast in our minds is the combination of the food and the people in a friendly place.
As we pick up again here in chapter 14, we find Jesus at a dinner party.
He was invited to the the home of a prominent pharisee, one of the rulers, on the Sabbath.
The Pharisees were trying to catch Jesus and as verse 1 says they were watching Jesus carefully.
But Jesus was also watching them.
He knew their hearts and first by healing a man, who because of his disease should not have been there, Jesus began to address the religious hypocrisy that had a grasp on them.
Jesus assaulted their beliefs about the Sabbath reminding them that the ultimate purpose that God had for the sabbath was restoration.
By restoring this man to health, Jesus was doing God’s will.
Showing mercy and restoring the man.
With their attention, Jesus told them a parable about a wedding feast.
The lesson Jesus taught through this parable was the need to be humble.
Jesus had observed these men attending the feast, scrambling to get the best seats in the house so they could gain some honor.
To climb the social ladder.
Jesus taught that in order to go higher up, you have to first go lower down.
11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Jesus gaze now turns to the host of the party.
Jesus intention in teaching is to show that God’s kingdom is different than the kingdom of this world.
What we need to learn is that as Christians, we must be humble and generous in our relationships, seeking to serve others selflessly and inviting those in need, just as God has graciously invited us into His kingdom.
12 He 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. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” 15 When 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!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But 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.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So 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.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And 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. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ”
I want to to imagine with me for a moment what would it look like if God were to throw a party?
What would it look like?
Who would he invite?
Would I be invited?
Who would all be there?
What would we learn about God from the party?
It is interesting that there is a common theme of a feast and a party throughout scripture in relation to heaven.
I have mentioned this before but at times I think we as Christians get a little ho-hum about heaven.
It’s a place we will get to go after we are done here.
We must be reminded that heaven will be a place so much greater than anything we could possibly imagine.
All of the good things that we experience now will be infinitely better in heaven.
Enough of a rabbit trail -
Jesus is at this dinner party, he has been doing some teaching, and now he turns to the host.
Jesus had looked around the room and saw who was there.
It was the who’s who of the town.
The rulers family, friends, rich neighbors, business owners.
Who is it that invites people to a party - the host.
Jesus says to the host
12 He 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.
Now of course the people around are listening in as well.
Put yourself in their shoes as they are overhearing this conversation.
I’m a friend.
I’m his brother.
I’m his cousin, nephew, etc.
I’m his rich neighbor.
All the rich and powerful influential people would have been at this party.
Perhaps even some from other areas as well.
People who were in positions of power or who were being groomed for a position of power.
In this shame and honor culture, the guest list was carefully selected so as to bring the host the most honor or in hopes of gaining something in return for the invitation.
Our world is full of this still today.
Who gets invited to foundation benefits - people the host know are wealthy and hope will donate.
What we see in Jesus day, and ours as well for that matter, are often reciprocal or transactional based relationships.
Unfortunately we also see this in marriages today, that is clearly evidenced in the rate of divorce.
So many people enter into relationships thinking what can I get back.
And when they no longer feel like they are getting a return on their investment, they cast the relationship aside.
But that is another rabbit trail.
People often seek to get closer to others to earn favors.
Jesus is at this party, full of carefully selected guests, teaching them about God and His kingdom.
I think if they had been sitting in chairs, they would have been shrinking down into them.
Jesus tells this man that when you host a party, you shouldn’t invite the people like you.
Jesus tells of the alternative in 13.
13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
He also gives a reason.
14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
We have to remember the context here, because this is a parable.
This is not a prescriptive passage - like a doctor writes a prescription saying to do this -
Jesus isn’t saying you can’t throw a party and invite your friends and family.
Jesus teaching is in the context of the kingdom of God.
Something of high priority on these men’s minds.
As religious men, their life’s goal was to get into God’s kingdom.
And get there with as much honor as they possibly could.
Jesus is using this earthly party to point his host to God’s heavenly party that is to come.
Jesus is using this opportunity to once again address the hearts and minds of these religious people.
He tells them, you don’t need to invite your rich friends, they have plenty.
Don’t invite the people that will make you look good, or people that will give you something in return.
Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.
When you throw a party, invite the people who will give you nothing back.
Invite the people that everyone looks down upon.
Jesus is giving them a picture of God’s kingdom and how it really works.
The relational structure of God’s Kingdom is so vastly different from theirs and from our own today.
The kingdom will upend the way our earthly relational structures work.
And Jesus is saying that doing that now, in this life will gain a reward at the resurrection.
Our typical relationships are reciprocal.
When we relate to someone, we are most often looking for something in response, rather than a one way relationship that is based on grace.
Most people operate in a reciprocal fashion in their relationships.
You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
We learn this even from a young age, this person invited you to their birthday party so you should invite them back.
One thing that Jesus is trying to show these men through this parable, and us for that matter, is that this was how they were operating in their relationship with God.
We can be equally guilty of this.
If I do certain things, if I do enough good, then God owes me something back.
But relationships in the kingdom of God don’t work that way.
God doesn’t work that way.
The problem is that we have fallen natures.
We are scorekeepers at heart.
We constantly track what we do and what others do and keep at least a mental record of it.
Records of right and wrong, good and bad.
We hold debts, we expect things in return.
Jesus is directly assaulting this way of relating.
This is not the way people relate to one another in the kingdom of God and even more importantly it’s not the way God relates to us.
It is not the way we are to relate to others either.
This is part of why we struggle so much with forgiveness.
Why it is so hard to forgive wrongs done against us.
Why we hold on to bitterness.
What Jesus is trying to show here is that we are to look to others and relate to them with grace instead of thinking what can they give me in return.
God will give the reward in due time.
Verse 15 we find what seems to me another interruption which Jesus uses to further his point.
You look around the room and the tension was probably so thick in the air that you could cut it with a knife.
If you place yourself in the room, Jesus once again has just insulted every person there.
This is when a guest chimes in
15 When 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!”
Perhaps he is trying to change the subject or make himself feel better.
Jesus uses this interruption to tell a parable about a great banquet.
Banquets in Jesus day served much the same purpose that they do today.
Invitations were sent with a request to RSVP so there would be a heads up to prepare enough food.
Life Application Bible Notes (Chapter 14)
The custom was to send two invitations to a party:
the first to announce the event and the second to tell the guests that everything was ready.
Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 (Excuses, Excuses)
When the servant came with a second invitation to dinner, the guests were obligated to come without delay
In between, the master of the banquet makes all of the necessary preparations.
In this case, the master has made all the preparations and sent out his servant to those who were invited to let them know the party is ready.
As this servant goes around he gets many different excuses.
I have bought a field, I must go see it.
I have bought five yoke of oxen, I must go examine them.
I have married a wife and I cannot come.
These people had all made their RSVP, but then they refused to come.
Each of them offered some kind of excuse.
One commentator, Leon Morris calls this “The Parable of Excuses.”
Each excuse is all equally absurd.
They didn’t have the internet to look at pictures of a property, they would not buy land sight unseen.
No one would buy oxen without examining them and knowing if the teams could work together.
As for the newlywed, why not bring her with?
In the culture of Jesus’ day, such a deliberate refusal was unthinkably rude.
No one ever rejected a second invitation.
To accept a first invitation and then fail to come to a party was simply not done, if it was, it was probably an intentional insult.
The guests in Jesus’ story insulted the host by making excuses when he issued the second invitation.
What Jesus was trying to show through this parable, is that this was exactly what these religious leaders were doing to God.
In Israel’s history, God’s first invitation came from Moses and the prophets; the second came from his Son.
The religious leaders accepted the first invitation.
They believed that God had called them to be his people, but they insulted God by refusing to accept his Son.
Thus, as the master in the story sent his servant into the streets to invite the needy to his banquet,
so God sent his Son to a whole world of needy people to tell them that God’s Kingdom had arrived and was ready for them.
The sad reality is that many people treat Jesus the same way today.
They have been invited to receive the free gift of eternal life by trusting in his cross and the empty tomb, yet they will not come.
Some of them say that they will, but they never do.
They offer the same lame excuses that people made in the parable.
God is not as important to them as their own interests.
They are too busy pursuing their earthly entertainments.
They are tied up with their commitments at work.
They have family and friends that pull them away from church.
They say they do not have time for God, at least not right now.
But whatever excuses they come up with, the real reason for their rude rejection is that they simply will not come to Christ.
Remember, Jesus is addressing the good church going crowd here.
He is laying out excuses used to snub the host who they had already committed to.
There are many in churches that do the same today.
How often do you and I do the same thing.
I can be guilty of this also.
How often do we say out of one side of our mouths, God I want you, and then we live for other things, not necessarily bad things, but things that take God’s place.
How often do we run to things other than God for comfort and pleasure, to ease our stress.
Especially when we have committed to him already.
We too can end up missing what Jesus is trying to get across in this parable.
God is throwing a party.
He is going to have the grandest banquet anyone has ever seen.
The people that are going to be at God’s party, are the people who will enjoy it the most.
God doesn’t force anyone to his party.
As Jesus shows the master doesn’t send his servant to go and drag those people who had rsvp’d to the party to come.
No one is going to force you to the party.
He will invite you, the invitation is here and now.
Helping you to see the futility of chasing all the other things.
The most amazing thing about this party is that it s a party where sins can be forgiven.
Where you can live free in relationship to God and in relationship to one another.
Through this party, God reorients lives and gives purpose and hope.
But He will not force anyone there.
In fact he specifically invites the people who have nothing to offer in return.
We can bring nothing to the party.
More than that, God is inviting even those who are furthest from Him to the party.
Go to the highways and hedges.
This is where the lowest people would be.
And thank God He invites the lowest of the low otherwise you and I would not be able to come.
Jesus in the way he relates to others, is different than any other relationship, because He is pointing people to the Kingdom of God.
God is inviting people himself to come to the banquet.
The banquet is representative of salvation.
The only way into the banquet is through Jesus.
Jesus gives his entrance ticket to you, when you trust in His work on the cross.
Jesus has been showing these religious leaders, these good church folks, over and over again that He is the Messiah.
The one that is to come.
That the only way to have a relationship with God is not through rigid religious rules, but through a relationship
Everything inside of us wants to bring something to the table in our relationship with God
But what Jesus keeps coming back to over and over and over again is that you can't
Some of us want to hold on to our legalism we want to follow the rules in such a way that God will love us
but what we see is that God loves people in spite of who they are
The other reality is that no one deserves to be at God’s party.
The most amazing news is that we are invited
Invited to a party that we would never be invited to on our own
Imagine how the people felt in the parable.
This servant walks up to this down and out person - the king requests your presence at a great banquet.
Perhaps this person hadn’t eaten in days.
The people far from being loved in society the people no one wanted to be a a part of around.
The people who smelled bad and look bad
The people society had rejected.
Imagine how they felt when they got to this banquet and they're looking around at each other and you're like can you believe we're here
Can you believe it!
Look at that food we would never get.
And we can't give anything back.
The master, (God) won’t ask for anything back
He knows that we don't have anything to give back
We are in this same boat.
We have nothing to give back to God, yet he is inviting us into His party.
We show up at God’s party and realize that we're forgiven that we're treated as equals around the table
Jesus is inviting you to a great banquet.
He wants to pull you in close and help you to realize that you will only get there by grace.
Have you come to the banquet by putting your faith in Jesus.
You are here in church today.
Maybe you grew up in the church.
But have you been making excuses?
Have you come to Jesus for salvation?
People always have some reason or another for staying away from Jesus.
But what business could possibly be more important than making sure that you have eternal life?
What property could be more valuable to have than a title to heaven?
And what relationship could ever be more important than the one you can have with the God who made you and sent his Son to die for your sins?
If all you have to offer God are excuses, they will sound all too flimsy at the final judgment, when the only people who sit down at God’s great banquet are the people who actually came to Christ.
If you have accepted the invitation, what are you now doing with it?
Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 Going out and Coming In
God wants his house to be full for dinner.
Are you going out into the world with the gospel?
People are dying outside of Christ, and we must go and invite them to come in.
Share the gospel wherever you are, wherever you go.
Are you using your words and witness to compel people to come in>
Are you speaking earnestly with people about their spiritual situation until they come to Christ.
The servant has come.
God’s banquet is ready.
There is still room at his table.
But if we are so foolish as to refuse his open invitation—no matter what excuse we make—
it is not just dinner that we will miss, but our very salvation.
Do not miss out on what Jesus wants to give you, but come when you are called!
We need to be people who herald the good news that God is redeeming the world to himself in Christ, that he's putting things back right again.