Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Open

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a 1967 movie starring Katharine Hepburn.

In the movie, a young white woman named Joanna falls in love with a black man named John, and the two become engaged.

Wanting to share the good news with their parents, John and Joanna go to Joanna’s parents' home for a dinner party with her parents and John’s parents. Neither parents have met their kid's fiancé, nor one another.

Both families are shocked—but for different reasons.

Joanna’s parents are confronted with their unspoken assumptions about race.

John’s parents are shocked by an invitation they never expected to receive.

Analogy

Just like that dinner, Jesus tells a parable where the surprise isn’t the food—it’s the guest list.

It’s shocking because the people who actually come to this dinner party are not who we’d expect.

Advent Introduction

Title - Come To The Table

Each week, we’re exploring one of Jesus’s parables to that call us to prepare, to live with urgency, and with purpose.

We’re using the image of a dinner table to capture the truth of each message.

Today’s Message

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Not who you would expect!

Summary

God’s Kingdom is like a gracious banquet hosted by God Himself,

where those who assume they deserve a seat at the dinner table often refuse the invitation,

while those who know they don’t deserve a seat at the dinner table joyfully accept the invitation,

and the only ones who miss the feast are those whose hearts are too proud or distracted to accept the invitation

Key Truth

The Kingdom of God is available today to every person who comes to Jesus Christ by faith

Open to Luke 14 #1034 and Isaiah 25 #698

Theme: The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom Grows

Jesus has the KoG on his mind. He says it is like a seed that grows to become a tree with many branches full of birds making nests.

The Kingdom is Enjoyed - and Rejected!

Jesus says that some people will enjoy the benefits of being close to the Kingdom, but they never submit to its King. In the end Jesus will say to them, “I never knew you.”

The Kingdom Faces Opposition

Where you see opposition, there’s a good chance the Kingdom of God is present.

The Text of Luke 14:12-24

Luke 14:12–24 “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. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 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.’ ””

Summary of the Parable

Jesus is a Guest at a Banquet

Jesus exposes the host’s motives by pointing out that he only invited people who could benefit him socially—those with status, resources, and influence who could repay his generosity.

He wasn’t doing this for love but for personal gain!

Jesus said if you want to be blessed, then invite those who cannot repay you—the overlooked and outcast—because God Himself will reward that kind of grace at the resurrection.

The Heart Posture of One Guest Is Key

Some guy hears all this and says, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of Heaven!”

His statement assumed that blessings belong to people like him. He deserved to be at the table.

Jesus tells a parable of the Great Banquet. There are five key figures in this parable—and most people miss the most important one.

#1 Banquets

Joyful Celebrations!

Banquets were joyful celebrations that commemorated significant life events or religious festivals.

They were all about building community through hospitality, deepening relationships, and honoring one another.

Last Seven Days!

Banquets typically lasted seven days, sometimes up to 14 days!

Archaeological evidence from a city called Nineveh which is in modern day Iraq of one banquet that last lasted ten days and had over 70,000 guests.

Included Food and Other Things!

Banquets included food (meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, baked goods, pies).

They included drinks like beer & wine.

There were flowers and garlands.

There was entertainment: music, singers, dancers, comedians.

There was joking, laughter, joy!

#2 Host

Banquets symbolized your status in society.

As a host, you could impress everyone with your wealth and generosity.

In the ancient world, eating with one another was a sacred act that was loaded with implications and promises.

If you were invited into the home of someone to eat a meal, the person hosting you was making a promise to you that everyone in the culture understood.

The host was saying, “As long as you are in my house, you can trust my faithfulness to you and depend on my protection.”

That’s a tremendous promise!

Because hosts made this tremendous promise to each and every guest in their home, if you were invited to a banquet then you were honor-bound to attend.

#3 Guests

Banquets symbolized your status in society.

As a guest, you were on the list. You were invited. You were somebody. You belonged!

Your arrival was a big deal!

Guests were honored and welcomed by the host. Each guest received three things.

(1) Guests received a kiss from the host on arrival.

(2) Guests received water to wash their hands and feet, to prepare for dinner.

(3) Guests were crowned with a garland.

#4 Outcasts

These were people that society had written off and overlooked.

#5 Servant (The one we overlook)

The servant in this parable is the one who works for the host.

Part of the servant’s job was to go to each invited guest to deliver a personal invitation to the banquet.

Think of it like a personal save the date card.

And then leading up to the banquet, the servant would deliver another invitation, and another invitation up to the very day of the banquet.

Biblical/Theological Understanding of Parable (Five Pieces are Meaningful)

The banquet represents the Kingdom of God.

God describes his coming kingdom as a feast.

Isaiah 25:6–8 “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.”

Christians rightly understand these words as being fulfilled at the cross of Christ.

On this mountain, there’s an unending feast of food and wine. There’s no death.

On this mountain, we can see the entire plan of salvation that God worked through human history.

As Christians, we believe that this is the same mountain where Christ hung on a cross for us.

The Host is God.

The God of all creation is the one who prepared this feast, and he wants everyone to enjoy it!

The Invited Guests are the People of ‘National Israel.’

These were the people born Jewish.

They were the ones who God saved by grace in Egypt and who he invited to learn a new way of life.

They received his instructions at Mt. Sinai on how to live their lives in grateful response for what God had done for them. This was the purpose of the Ten Commandments, to teach them how to love God and one another.

God intended them to be his servants who would bring others to the banquet.

The tragedy that Jesus points out in the parable is that the people God invited to the banquet became distracted and missed the banquet!

The Servant is Jesus Christ.

Part of the servant’s job was to go to each invited guest to deliver a personal invitation to the banquet. Think of it like a personal save the date card. And then leading up to the banquet, the servant would deliver another invitation, and another invitation up to the very day of the banquet.

“Come! You’re Invited. My master requests your presence because he would like to bless you.”

Isaiah 49:5–6 “And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength— he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.””

God declared, long before Jesus was born, that a servant was going to love God the Father by obeying his command to go out and bring people to this great dinner banquet.

Christians rightly understand these words as being fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ.

God the Father sent the God the Son to give us the invitation to a great banquet.

The ones invited are not always who we’d expect.

The Outcasts are the People who will Become ‘Spiritual Israel.’

Two ways to understand outcast: Our Way and God’s Way

Our Way, the way the religious people of Jesus’s day thought about an outcast, is someone who doesn’t deserve to be invited to the banquet because they weren’t born the right way.

An outcast is someone that I judge to be unworthy, a bum, a loser, an expendable, who cares if they die, they’re good for nothing.

That language is ugly—but it reveals how the human heart categorizes people.

God’s Way of thinking about an outcast is different.

An outcast for God is someone who he wants to accept his invitation to a Great Banquet.

God’s plan all along was to create a people who were united not by the blood in their veins but by, as the Bible says, the circumcision of their hearts.

What that means is this: Your heart is where his kingdom reigns. If you want to know God, then you must start obeying him because the posture of your heart determines whether his kingdom will reign in your life.

One day there will be a real banquet with real food, and real wine.

But that banquet has already begun in the hearts of men, women, and children all across this world.

Takeaways

This parable teaches that the Kingdom of God is available to all who come to Christ by faith.

One thing that we’ve all received this Christmas season is a promotional email from some company that wants to sell us something. The email tells you what’s available and then offers you 15% or 20% off at checkout when you use the promo code - SAVE15 or SAVE20. There’s something exclusive about the promo code. The only way to save 15% or 20% at checkout is to use the promo code. But there’s also something inclusive about the promo code. A 15% or 20% savings at checkout is available to anyone who uses the promo code.

The invitation to the Kingdom of God is like the promo code - JESUSCHRIST.

When you’re at checkout, the only way to receive the blessings is to use that promo code. There’s no other way.

But that promo code is available to everyone who uses it.

You cannot enter the Kingdom unless God invites you, but that invitation is available to all who come to Christ by faith.

Christ does not reject us. We reject him.

The only ones who miss this banquet feast are the ones who refuse to come.

(Binary Categories in Bible) This parable teaches that people who sit in churches are either a Seat-Claimer or a Grateful Guest.

When I was younger, quite a few people used to attend the Friday night football games. Traveling to an away stadium was always a problem because Manheim traveled well as they say - We brought a lot of people. My senior year, I remember arriving at the Cedar Crest High School stadium, watching people jump fences, running across the field to get the best seat in the stadium. Thirty minutes later, when we as a team came out on the field for warm-ups, there was a physical fight going on between two guys over seats.

The people who miss out on the Kingdom of God are Seat-Claimers and the ones who accept the invitation are the Grateful Guests.

These aren’t social classes; they’re spiritual postures of the human heart.

Seat-Claimers live with a sense of entitlement.

When they talk about church, the words “my” and “I” are the two most frequent words out of their mouths.

This is my seat and my place and my church and I deserve to be here.

Grateful Guests live with a sense of thankfulness.

When they talk about church, the words “his” and “he” are the two most frequent words out of their mouths. This is his doing and his church and he built it on the sacrifice that he made on the cross.

This Parable emphasizes Love for God and Love for Others.

The Ones Losing Their Place at the Table

The guys who claimed to be worshipers of the King and all about his Kingdom didn’t even recognize their King when he was sitting at a table with them. That should get our attention.

They became distracted and more interested with the things on the table than with the Host of the table.

They didn’t love God by being thankful for what they had been given. Instead, they believe that they deserved to be at that table.

They didn’t love others by inviting them to sit at the table with them. Instead, they judged people to be unworthy to sit next to them.

The Ones Taking Their Place at the Table

They didn’t claim to be worshipers of God. They knew how far from him they really were.

When they sat down, they were thankful for what’s on the table, but their focus is on the Host of the Table.

They Loved God by living their lives thankful for what he has done for them.

They Love others by inviting others to sit ahead of them.

Application

Refocus your love.

Some of you have become focused on the things on the table. You think that this is where the real feast is found. You get caught in the lesser things in life.

This happens to us from time to time.

We must watch out for this because when this happens, it’s a sign that our love for God and others has grown cold.

Accept the invitation.

In this parable, the Host told the Servant to go out into the streets back alleys to bring the poor, crippled, blind, and lame to this banquet that he had prepared.

Some of you can’t believe that you would be invited to sit at the King’s table. You’re like me, you know how much you’ve done wrong and so you keep checking the invitation to make sure this isn’t some kind of a joke!

If you’re sitting here ashamed of what you’ve done, embarrassed and broken, then praise God because your heart is ready to receive and accept his invitation.

Those who have been forgiven little, love little. They believe they have a right to be here.

Those who have been forgiven much, love much.

Trust and believe that Christ died for your sins and that your invitation to this banquet comes from his doing not your own.

Communion

As followers of Jesus Christ, we believe that Jesus began this banquet on the cross where his body was broken and his blood poured out for us.

When we take this bread and juice, we’re taking our place at the table with eyes on the King.

PRAY

The bread which we break is the communion of the Body of Christ.

The cup which we bless is the communion of the Blood of Christ.

Closing (AFTER CLOSING WORSHIP SONG)

A young woman sat alone in a high school cafeteria. No one paid attention to her, she was an outcast who wore the wrong kind of clothing and listened to the wrong kind of music. One day, this girl was invited to sit a table with other girls. Over the course of one year, everything in that girl’s life changed. From the way she dressed, to the music she listened to, the very way she saw and understood the world. She learned a completely new way of life because one person invited her.

Jesus never once asked someone to change their clothes or state their qualifications before following him. He simply invited them. “Follow me” he said. “Follow me to learn a new way of life.” Imagine if a group of people understood evangelism simply as an invitation. They would change the world forever.

Live as a servant.

God is in the business of taking broken things and making them new.

You were an outcast, but now you’re called to be a servant.

Act like a servant of the King. Go out and invite the outcast.