You're Invited

Intro:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, or should I start saying Merry Christmas…. Too soon? We are doing a little something different this weekend, because we thought the special music would be more fitting at the end of the sermon. It will all make sense in the end. I promise.

But if you are new here, you wouldn’t know the difference so enjoy either way and thanks for being a part of the family of worship today. Whether you are at home or in this house, I am happy to be with you.

Well to catch you all up. We are finishing up a series called Tables: Conversations that lead to change.

Now most of us probably experienced some sort of table setting this past week, and if your family is anything like mine you probably shared all the change you have experienced with your family rather than walking away changed.

I love gathering with my family for thanksgiving, it’s an all-day feast with family and friends coming and going throughout the day. My family’s table is filled with diversity, stories of change and laughter. Many people we never expected to be around our table, but over the years have come to enjoy the love we share.

PICTURE

These gatherings remind me a lot of our weekly gatherings here. Beautifully diverse family, with stories of change and challenge, but also laughter and beloved guests.

You see Jesus had a knack for wanting to eat with his people. The son of God was always hungry, but not for food, but time with us.

In our text for today, I find this unique declaration in the book of Revelation, Jesus says to one of his churches, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Why is this what God says? Why not something more than a meal, something more shiny, more meaningful? There is something God wants us to experience as we enjoy a close meal with him around the table.

Maybe it’s because our guard is down over a meal, perhaps we listen better because our mouths are full, right? If it’s awkward we can play with our food, or take a sip to see what unfolds. It should not surprise us then that when we look at the book of Luke, who is charting these events of Christ life. There are 24 chapters, and nearly 50% of the chapters cover a moment over a meal or around a table. Jesus meets us at these tables.

This whole series has been designated to looking at these conversations, and hopefully stirring our own conversations with others as well. Last week Pastor Rufus shared with us about a “tough” talk that arose out of a dilemma or tension in the church, particularly in the early church.

Today I want to look at another tough conversation, but this time for our church today.

The text I read earlier is often used as a word picture of Christ knocking on our hearts for the first time. As beautiful of a picture that might be, and Christ certainly does knock on our hearts , there are a few more questions that need to get answered for us to appreciate these words a little more. So today I would like for us to take a closer look at why Jesus is knocking and to whom is he wanting to eat with.

So let’s read the full scripture of Revelation and its address to the church of Laodicea, 3:14-22

14 “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Laodicea. This is the message from the one who is the Amen—the faithful and true witness, the beginning[a] of God’s new creation:

15 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! 16 But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! 17 You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. 18 So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see. 19 I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and turn from your indifference.

20 “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. 21 Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne.

22 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.”

The first thing to take note of is that Jesus is knocking on the doors of the church that already claims to be his? This knock is a re-invitation.

You are re-invited to this feast that Christ is preparing…. (so I ask) will you join him again?

So what we have here is the church of Laodicea has moved to a stagnant state. They are no longer being used by God. You can use cold water and you can use hot water for specific purpose but in this case they are neither and they have rendered themselves useless.

They essentially say “Oh Hey God we love you, but we are good, we are “rich” we don’t need anything. But the reality is Jesus wants them to know the richness of what he has called them to do, he wants them to be able to see who he has called them to be. But they think, “No thanks, we are good.”

You ever watch a little kid try to eat chocolate pudding, or cone of ice cream in warm weather. They are old enough to “do it themselves” but don’t have the dexterity to do it without making a mess. You know what I am talking about. You look over to them to see how they are doing, and it’s sliding down their face, spilling over their fingers and all in their hair as they use their collar for a napkin.

When I ask my kids, hey buddy, it looks like you need help. “No thanks, I’m good”. No, you are not good!!! I can’t take you anywhere like that.

I kind of think something like this is going on, obviously much more severe. Christ sees this church enjoying the plentifulness of his love, and making a mess with it, or storing it up for their own appreciation. So much so Christ can’t take them anywhere to use them. It’s as if Jesus’ re-invitation is a call to go get cleaned up, so they can be used once again.

In fact, just before he talks about knocking, he even calls it discipline. Hey repent, clean up, and remember I am here to be with you. I want to use you, but not when you are like this.

Funny thing about repentance though, there is at least two ways we can think about repentance. There is repentance with “Big R”, that’s when we answer the stirring in our spirit to submit our lives to Christ, where we come to the first step of believing God has taken care of my sin of my past, present and future

Then there is the second way, repentance with a “little r”. This is the continual repentance we do daily to redirect our attention back to the “Big R” repentance. This is the daily dying to self, and remembering what Christ has done and what he calls me to. Redirecting your heart and soul back to who’s you are and why you are his.)

This knock is a “little r” repentance. In some ways it echoes the words Jesus gave to the church of Ephesus, just a chapter before.

“But I have this against you: You have left the love you had in the beginning. So remember where you were before you fell. Change your hearts and do what you did at first. If you do not change, I will come to you. I will take away your lampstand from its place.”

Revelations 2:4-5

Repentance is a lifelong practice, and it is not just repentance/redirection away from sin, it’s a repentance/redirection towards God and his mission. A redirection of our waywardness. The church of Laodicea was not blatantly called out for a particular sin that needed to be repented of, they were called out for a misdirection or complacency, or no direction. It wasn’t repenting from a sin, it was repenting toward God.

As if to say, I am good. I am a good Christian, I don’t have any glaring sin to repent of. But some of us today need to repent toward God, because we are not being used by him in his mission for our neighbors to come to know him as we know him.

Application:

For those of you with us today that have been around Hope for some time you are going to know our mission. “We exist to engage our unchurched neighbors of every age and ethnicity to experience Jesus.”

Hope was created to be a church welcoming to the “unchurched, de-churched, against church, etc…” the old saying is that this was a place for people who have given up on church but haven’t given up on God. This is still our mission, I believe this is the mission for all churches.

But there is this mentality, that you can’t be “churched” and be a church for the unchurched…. You are either churched or you are not. You either spiritually feed believers or you invite new believers, but you can’t do both. I disagree, I believe the more churched we are the better and stronger we are for the unchurched, those who haven’t given up hope on God or the love he gives us in Jesus. We get to be the people, the church, that shows that God hasn’t given up on them

You see, the more we learn of God, his word, his son and the mission of the kingdom the more we can’t help but be called to the mission. We don’t just grow rich in his word, we grow so that we can spend his riches on others. Our hearts should be broken and bent toward those who do not know Jesus, the real Jesus, the one who is friend to sinners, lost and broken, those standing on the outside looking in.

Nowhere in Christ’s mission does he say get fattened up on my love and sit and enjoy, in fact what I read is that we are to get strengthened to go. Go and invite others to what you have tasted and seen. It’s as easy as this…

“Hey I experienced this place called Hope, a place that is patient with my questions to be strengthened in this man Jesus, and his love and truth. You want to check it out with me? Tell me what you think?”

Jesus reminds us all today, as he called out to Laodicea then, let us not grow useless to God let us answer the knock, the re-invitation to re-engage with the mission of Christ to seek and save the lost. He has uniquely made us for this mission, and he wants to use us. And if there is anything we have learned in this series is that he can and will use anyone one of you.

So Jesus followers with me today, you have been re-invited to be a part of this feast. You have been asked to extend the invite, but some people are going to feel uninvited. Which leads me to our second point.

You are uninvited to this feast that Christ is preparing. Which will you be?

There are two types of uninvited people.

I ask this question because some of us are going to be uninvited or at least feel uninvited. There are some who are invited, but decide not to engage. Invited then uninvited

In a parable that Jesus shared while reclining at another table with some Pharisee he said,

“A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, ‘Come, the banquet is ready.’ But they all began making excuses. One said, ‘I have just bought a field and must inspect it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five pairs of oxen, and I want to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

Luke 14:16-20

Did you catch how that last guy blamed it on his wife, guys don’t do that. I’m just teasing. But for real some will be uninvited, because we make excuses that there are more important things, or we disqualify ourselves because we don’t believe God can or should use us. Or worse yet, we don’t actually believe Jesus is actually inviting me to join him. Let’s not be in the business of making excuses, or being too busy to used by God, or else we will find ourselves “uninvited” as well.

But Jesus then essentially extends the invitation to another group of “uninvited.”

This group is truly uninvited. They are the lost, the forgotten, the ostracized, the marginalized, they are the ones that no one ever thought would get invited. Never invited and now invited.

This parable continues… in Luke 14:21-24

“The servant returned and told his master what they had said. His master was furious and said, ‘Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ After the servant had done this, he reported, ‘There is still room for more.’ So his master said, ‘Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full. For none of those I first invited will get even the smallest taste of my banquet.’”

To be clear this parable is more precisely teaching about how Jesus’ own people did not receive him, and so many of those that were outside looking in, the unclean, the discredited, and the other nations were now invited

But today it is still valid to share this aspect as well, that God calls the people he chooses to call and invite. In this case, the church is his servant. The church is not the host, God is the host. The church is in charge of extending the invites. We do not control who God wants to invite.

Last week Rufus preached on Luke 7, and a few months ago I came across it, and God punched me in the gut regarding a point he was trying to make. For those of you not familiar with the moment, Jesus was dining with some Pharisee, religious teachers and keepers of the day. As they were chilling, a woman, who was a known sinner, comes in and begins to cry at Jesus’ feet, then disgraces herself by wiping his feet with her hair, and even more so proceeds to potentially pour her life savings in perfume out upon his feet.

She was not supposed to be there, she was truly “uninvited”, she walked in off the street after hearing that Jesus was there, and she couldn’t help but pour her life out at his feet. She was overwhelmed with Jesus and didn’t care who saw her love for him. She didn’t care whose house she had to intrude to experience Jesus closer.

This is what I felt in my heart after reading this. “If she was never allowed into the house, she may have never had the chance to cry at Jesus’ feet.” But then I began to wrestle with my own thoughts and thought,

“Who do I believe is uninvited, but needs to be invited today. Who does not feel welcomed to come into the house where we believe Jesus can be worshiped? Who desires to cry at his feet, but is looking for the right place to do it?”

I need to remember my first love, that I was once the “uninvited” on the outside looking in, even like this “sinner” in the story. We were all once uninvited, and Christ invited us, and we fell deeply in love with him.

And we now extend this same invite to others, but not because of our perfection. No, right the opposite, we remember our brokenness and what Jesus did with it. We invite others out of our remembrance of our forgiven-ness.

When I remember my forgiven-ness, when we remember all that we have been forgiven, we recognize none of us “deserve” a seat at the table. Kind of like being a kid wanting to be at the adult table, but then that glorious day comes when we get invited to the big table. At the kids table you get forgotten, but there is a seat at the big table waiting for you.

Take the moment right now, and think to yourself, who is the last person I would ever expect to be in this room with me? Who has the news or other churches said should not be invited? Maybe its someone or others that area always on your heart, or even get on your nerves, maybe its personal for you, maybe you feel it is you? That’s who needs to be invited to be reminded they have not been forgotten

They too have a seat at the table. They too can experience Jesus. We know they can, because we have experienced Him.

How do we become a place that people can come to experience Jesus, and be invited to pour their lives over the feet of Jesus?

We need to remember that as Jesus followers, we are servants to his mission, not just our own. We need to remember that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. His church was supposed to be a hospital for the spiritually sick and in need. We are all in his care, and some are in need of intensive care.

We become a place for the uninvited, the unchurched, by remembering that we are now servants to the host, and our job is to share his riches and extend the invite.

You are invited to this feast that Christ has prepared… Who is your plus 1?

How many of you have ever received an invitation to an event or party? They usually have a way to reserve your spot and one for your guest. You see when we receive the invite from Christ to dine with him, we get the opportunity to bring plus 1. Who’s your plus 1?

When we think about inviting others, we rarely think of those that we don’t want to invite right? But the irony is, that is how we got invited. The least likely to be invited, is who Christ came down upon this earth and gave his life for. Certainly you would love for your friends and loved ones to be invited, but I encourage us all also to consider the persons that we used to think is not “good enough” to be at the table. What would our church look like if they became our “plus one?” What would our world look like if that person/those people became our plus ones?

I’m reminded of the concluding verses in scriptures, where Christ finally comes face to face with his church, all those that were invited and cried at his feet. It says,

“Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” - Revelation 19:9

This feast is a feast that Christ himself has prepared across the history of humanity. In the same way we celebrate the hard work and bounty of thanksgiving around a table that is filled with the fruits of our labor. At this feast with Christ, we celebrate the bounty of Jesus’ labor in each other. His work on the cross, flung open the doors for us to be blessed with his invite.

When we see each other, we praise the hard work of Christ and his people to get each of us around the table.

The amazing thing, is every weekend that we come together across this campus and over the internet we get to experience a rehearsal dinner if you will. We rehearse the day that we all feast together around the wedding feast of the Lamb. Each and every weekend we display to the world that one day this will be our family, and this family was wed together at the cross.

When we invite others to join us for these rehearsals, we hope to bless them with the chance to experience Jesus and receive the eternal invite into the family.

Maybe you are here today because you are with family and/or were invited. We want you to know this place exists for you. Maybe you look back over this year and or your years and think there has to be something more, something bigger than this mundane existence, but if there is I am not worth its attention. Your invite today is not by chance, and is a way that this something bigger, this God is welcoming you to the table.

If you would like to find out more about this God, keep coming, or speak with one of our faith family members at the kiosk in the back, or even a pastor to pray with you.

If you have been worshiping with us for some time now, I want to remind you that God is re-inviting us all back into his mission. As we enter into advent season it is the perfect time to extend an invite to someone to welcome your “plus 1.”

If you worship with us at home, you have the perfect opportunity to invite a neighbor or another family member near you to have coffee with you over worship in the comfort of your own household. Take the time to share your own invite story, either to Hope or into the family of Christ.

As we come to a close, it seems fitting to remind you all of Rufus’ acronym of how to extend a hand and invite to someone this holiday season.

H-are they hurting? Have they experienced something in this world that has robbed them of worth or hope? Have they experienced loss of any sort? Life, financial, material, relationally…

A- are they asking? Do they have questions that your relationship with Christ can help with?

N- new to town? Do they feel alone, or disconnected? Are the looking for a community?

D-are they unchurched/dechurched? Is someone on the outside looking in? Is someone uninvited that needs to know they have been invited?

If someone is experiencing any of these, extend a hand and invite them. However, maybe you are not new and you find yourself in some these areas. Remember that the faith family is here to share your burdens as well. You are not alone, there is room for you at the table. All are welcome to come and lay their burdens down.

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Pray

BENEDICTION

May Jesus Christ himself, and God the father, who reached down in love and surprised us with an invitation into his grace, may he comfort your hearts, may he stir a kind and good work, and inspire your speech today and forever Amen!