I invite you to turn in the Word of God to the gospel according to Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14. You'll find it on page 1111 in your pew Bibles. Luke 14, I'll begin reading in verse 15 to the end of 24. When one of those who reclined at table with Jesus heard these things, he said to him, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But he said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 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. But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, I have bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them. Please have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. 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. And the servant said, Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room. 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. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. That's the reading of God's holy word. I'm sure some of you have done this numerous times yourself. The plates have been placed on the table, the knife on the right, the forks on the left with the spoons above the plate, and the glasses are on the table ready to receive the desired liquid. The bowls are full of steaming vegetables, the platters are full of thinly sliced roast beef and baked chicken, and the boats are full of gravy. And then you look and you see that everything is almost ready. The music is softly playing. The candles are lit. And after one last survey, you go to the sitting room where your family and friends are assembled. You get their attention and you say to them, come, for everything is now ready. Well, in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, that's the very thing that the Lord Jesus Himself says to you, come, for everything is now ready. You will remember, perhaps, if you'd been here last Lord's Day, that Jesus is in the house of the ruler of a Pharisee. He had been there as the invited guest, and even though the Pharisees were watching him carefully, seeing how he would trip up, Jesus has taken the opportunity to instruct them about the mysteries of the kingdom of God. He has told them that they ought not to seek great things for themselves, but to take the lower place, that they might then be exalted. He has encouraged them that when they invite people to the meal, they should not just invite their guests, those who can repay them, or not just invite their friends and those who can repay them, but they ought to invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. then they will receive blessing in the resurrection of the just. And when one of the individuals at the table there heard about the blessing at the resurrection of the just, this prompted him to make this statement that we read in verse 15. Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. We don't know the motive behind this question. We don't know where this individual's heart was. But our Lord Jesus uses the opportunity to speak to the assembled guests about that kingdom of God. And he says to them, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many. Now you'll know that throughout the Bible the picture of salvation that is commonly used is that of a feast. So for example, in Isaiah 25, the Lord says that one day he will prepare a table for the nations with the best of meats and the finest of wines. The psalmist in Psalm 23 says to God, with thankfulness, you have prepared for me a table in the presence of my enemies. My cup overflows. And you see that same theme carried out throughout the New Testament. It's all over in the Gospels. We read about it a couple of weeks ago from Luke 13, for instance, where the Lord Jesus says that many will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of God. A lot of Jesus' miracles were miracles of feeding the hungry. A lot of his parables had to do with a feast, like this very parable itself. And then Jesus, of course, upon his death, or just prior to his death, He instituted a memorial supper for his church until his coming again, the Lord's Supper, where he is the host and he serves us his grace. And then of course, heaven itself is described as the marriage supper of the Lamb. So grace, the gospel of grace, can be understood as a smorgasbord of the Lord's kindness to us. All sorts of blessings come to us. The table is full of his grace and mercy. There's the forgiveness of sins, which we enjoy. There's justification, a right standing before God. There's the sense of peace with God and the cleansing of one's conscience from sin. There is adoption where we are taken from the family of Satan and brought into the family of God so that we might call God our Father. There's the gift of the Holy Spirit who is given to us to dwell in us. and to change us day by day and step by step until we become like the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. There's all kinds of blessings that God has provided in the gospel, a limitless supply, more than you could imagine, far more than we ever deserve. There's grace upon grace in the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And so you can think of salvation as a feast, as a smorgasbord of grace. But I think we have to be a little more specific than that because the Bible doesn't say that grace is a thing or things that you can get. Rather, grace is a person. And the gospel is not just all these benefits that you can load yourself up with. No, the gospel is a person. You see, there is no forgiveness of sins without Jesus Christ. There is no adoption into the family of God except as that comes through union with the only begotten Son of God. There is no right standing before God except that the perfection of Christ is given to us and our sins are transferred to Him. There is no grace, no grace at all, no blessings at all without Jesus Christ. So that if you do not have the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not going to get forgiveness of sins and justification and adoption and sanctification or peace of conscience or joy in the Holy Spirit. None of those will be yours. But if you have the Lord Jesus Christ, then they're all yours. Because Christ shares everything with you. He's not stingy or parsimonious in any way. He's generous and he'll load you with his favors. so that we can actually say that the banquet that God prepares for people is not this grace and that blessing so much as Christ Himself. Christ is the banquet. The Lord Jesus is the feast that God invites His people to. And so we read this, for instance, John's Gospel, where the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking about himself, says, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gives you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. So it's God the Father who provides this feast of grace. Well, what is this bread that will satisfy our souls? What is this bread that will quench our thirst? Well, listen. For the bread of God, Jesus says, is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Christ is the feast. And if you eat the Lord Jesus Christ, as he himself later says in this chapter in John 6, to the consternation of many, it was too much for many, and they left Jesus, no longer followed him. But if you eat the flesh of the Son of God and drink his blood, Jesus says, that is, if you eat the banquet of God's grace as it's found in Jesus Christ, well, then you'll lack nothing. You will be overflowing with blessings. Unimaginable joy will be yours. Uncountable gifts will be given to you for your blessing, for your delight, for your eternal joy. Christ is the feast of God's grace. And so this man once gave a great banquet and invited many But then notice the response to this gracious invitation. You see that in verses 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. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused. Another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. All excuses. And really, if you think about it, they're quite silly excuses. I mean who buys a land sight unseen, and then after he has purchased it has to go out and see it? Or who buys five yoke of oxen without trying them out first to see how they pull the plow in the field? No one would do that. And what do you mean you've married a wife? Well, this is a wonderful opportunity to take her out on a date. It's tasty, it'll cost you nothing. Why would marriage keep you from coming to the Feast of Grace? They're excuses. They're ridiculous excuses. And they're ridiculous excuses because It is ridiculous to not accept, to resist, to reject the invitation to come to Jesus Christ that you might be satisfied in Him. And all these excuses are really a cover-up for their hostility They have a disdain, they have no interest whatsoever in this feast. I mean, all the things that they're engaged in, field and oxen and a wife, these are all good gifts, gifts from God. But they're never gifts from God intended to keep you from the greatest gift of God, which is Jesus Christ himself. They're all excuses. to hide this disdain, this disregard, this hostility to the man who gave his feast and to the feast itself. They don't want it at all. Now, it's without doubt that the Lord Jesus is speaking in the first place to His own people, the Jews. because you might have picked up on it, but there's a double invitation given. It seems like this man gave a great banquet and invited many. And so people at that first invitation would have presumably agreed to come. And then he tells them that everything is now ready. I don't know how much longer that would have been, maybe a week, two weeks later. He says, now everything is ready, so come. And you would expect those who had received this double invitation to come to the feast. but they all rejected it. And as I said, Jesus is undoubtedly speaking in the first place to the Jews because that's the very thing that happened to them. They had received a double invitation from God. I mean the whole Old Testament is this invitation that one day there's going to be a feast. One day someone is going to come that is going to bring blessing, unmeasured blessing, uncountable grace. And so already in the Old Testament, God had invited them to this feast. Just think of His words in Isaiah 55, come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Here's this gracious, generous invitation. to his people, come for everything is free and you'll be satisfied in ways that nothing else will. In fact, God goes on to constrain them to come and he shows them of the idiocy of rejecting this invitation. Why do you spend your money on which is not bread? And why do you spend your labor for that which is not satisfied? It doesn't make sense, does it? It's ludicrous. Why you would give all your efforts to finding satisfaction in these other things when I'm offering you water and milk and bread without money and without price. So there's the great invitation of God in the Old Testament. And then Christ comes on the scene. And he doubles up the invitation, and he says to the Jews, he says, come to me, that you might find rest for your souls. He says, come to me and drink, and you will never be thirsty again. He says, I'm the bread, come and eat, and you will never be hungry. So Jesus, throughout his ministry, has doubled up on the invitation of God to this feast of grace that is found in Jesus Christ himself. And we know what the Jews did with it. They rejected it, resisted it. came up with all kinds of excuses as to why the Lord Jesus was not deserving of their affection and delight. And in fact, they did more than that. It's not just that they rejected the invitation. They killed the feast himself. They clamored for his death. crucify Him, crucify Him. The only one who could bring them any happiness, they rejected with all kinds of excuses. They would not come. But if Jesus is speaking primarily in the first place to His own people, there is a application here, of course, to all who come under the sound of the gospel, to all who hear the gospel invitations to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to the Lord Jesus, He Himself says, and now He sends His servants throughout the world, and these servants say, come to the Lord Jesus. Everything is now ready. The sin that has kept you from fellowship with God at the table of His grace. Well, Christ has taken care of that sin by His death on the cross, by taking it as if they were His own and bearing the punishment that those sins deserve. So don't let your sin keep you from Christ. What about the lack of perfection that you need? That's taken care of as well by the life of the Lord Jesus, His perfect obedience, all that you require. to come to Christ is found in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And He invites you. It's not just that His ministers invite you, but when His ministers invite you, when the Father sends the servants and says to you, come, for now everything is ready, that's the Lord Jesus Christ saying to you, will you not come to Me? that you might have life in my name. Will you not come that you might be satisfied, that your hungry souls might be filled, that your thirsty souls might be quenched, that you can have the hope of eternal life, of eating at the table of the marriage supper of the Lamb with Christ himself as both host and food? Christ invites you to come. And the reasons for people asking to be excused are still as silly and ridiculous now as they were then. You don't have time to come to Christ. You're busy in life. Well, if you don't have time to come to Christ, then you don't have time to die. Let me assure you of that. Or you say, I will come, but not right now. There's things I want to do. There's things I want to see. There's goals I want to accomplish. It's not that you reject Christ outright. It's just not right now. Thank you very much. You procrastinate. And again, like the excuses in the parable, it's not bad to own land or to have oxen or buy a new tractor. It's not wrong at all to marry a wife. It's a wonderful thing to do, in fact. But it's not good to do those things if those things are the things that are keeping you from coming to Christ and eating and drinking the Lord Jesus, the banquet that God has provided. So Jesus is saying, come, for now everything is ready. And what are you saying to Jesus this morning? What is your response? Have you come to the Lord Jesus Christ and eaten His grace? Have you come to the Lord Jesus and drunk from Him? Have you come to the Lord Jesus and found rest for your souls? Now, I'm not asking. I'm not asking you whether you're a member of the church. I'm asking whether you've come to the Lord Jesus. I'm not asking if you once stood up here and had your children baptized and were faithful in sending them to church and to catechism and to Christian school. That's not what I'm asking you at all. I'm asking you, have you come to the Lord Jesus Christ? I'm not asking if you're better than you used to be or if you're reading your Bible and praying as good as those things are. The question is, Jesus says, come, for everything is now ready. And the question is, have you come to the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you acknowledged your sin and your need for the Lord Jesus Christ? Or are you still thinking that you're actually not that bad at all? You are a sinner, but then again, who isn't a sinner? And with just a little more effort, just a little more reading the Bible, just a little more prayer, you'll make it. Or have you come to see that outside of the grace of Christ you are conceived and born in sin and therefore by nature are a child of wrath and cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you are born again by the Spirit of God? Have you seen that? Have you been convicted that there is only one name given among men by which you must be saved, that there is only one mediator between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ? And have you come to the Lord Jesus Christ and embraced Him and received Him and have by faith eaten Him? Have you come to the Lord Jesus? to the one who says, come, for everything is now ready. Now you might think these questions somewhat tedious and annoying, and you've heard them before, and they're irritating to you. Perhaps they are. But I don't really care if they are. I don't care if you don't want to hear them again. because I want you to hear them again, because eternity is at stake. That's the thing, like you have to feel the weight of eternity, that you're not going to live forever, and that one day you will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and He says, all your life I've said, come, what have you done? You say, well, I've done nothing. And then he'll say, go, depart from me, you evil doers. So it's not insignificant. I'm not trying to be a pain. I just want you to be clear on what you have done with the gracious invitation of God in Jesus Christ. Because look at what it says at the end of the paragraph. And it's quite profound. Jesus is telling the parable, and then He looks around the table, and He eyeballs them. For I tell you, He says, you and you and you and you. He says, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. That's solemn. It's not just that they won't eat of it. They won't even taste of my banquet. And instead, they will go out into outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. The stakes are high, my dear friends. Jesus has come, for everything is now ready. What do you say to the Lord Jesus? But the story goes on. The servant who went out to invite people with the second of the double invitation, he came and reported these things to his master, just like ministers all over the world to this very day tell their master how the preaching is being received. And the master was angry, we read, as well he should be, because Because it's not just an invitation, it's also a command. It's not just that he says, come to me. He says, go to Christ. And so to reject the invitation, to reject the command is to despise his generosity, to reject his offering, to count the Lord Jesus Christ as an insignificant person. So of course he's angry. But then notice what he does. He says, verse 21, go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. And when that was done, the servant came back and said, sir, what you commanded has been done. And still there is room. And then look at what he does in verse 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 full. Now there's a lot that could be said here, but I see the time is progressing. So let me just say a couple of things. First, the sheer undeservedness of grace. It's lovely. Remember what Jesus said in verses 12 to 14, when you give a dinner or 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. So invite those who have nothing with which to repay you. He says go, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. That's what he told the Pharisees. But Jesus doesn't say one thing and do another. That's the very thing he does. Notice what he says there in verse 21. Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. That is God's grace. doesn't come to the deserving, doesn't come to the worthy, doesn't come to those who have it all together, doesn't come to those who can then repay the Lord Jesus for his kindness and generosity to them. No, it comes to those who are broken and ruined by the fall, who have nothing to offer Christ, who can only say, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling. They who have nothing except the hunger because of sin that makes the feast necessary. The Lord Jesus doesn't expect to be repaid because grace is free, so free. In fact, how free is it? It's so delightfully free. Notice what it says there at the end of verse 21. Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. Just think of the picture. You come to someone who's blind and you say, here's the invitation. They say, well, sounds great. I'd love to come, but I can't get there, I'm blind. Or he's lame, I'd love to come, but I can't get there, I'm lame, I can't walk. And the servant says, no problem at all. Says, I'll bring you in. Isn't that lovely? You say, I need to come to Jesus, but I can't come to Jesus. And Jesus says, it's okay, I'll bring you in. Just tell me. Tell me your needs. Tell me your helplessness. Tell me your inability. Tell me everything that you lack and I'll supply everything that you need. Grace is rich and it's absolutely, completely, thoroughly free for the taking. So that's the first thing. And then after Those in the city are invited and brought in. The servant says, there's still room. There's still seats at the banquet feast. 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. Not only is grace free, but God loves to show grace. Mercy is his delight. He will show judgment. Absolutely. I wouldn't want you to think that God is somehow soft on sin and that you can be careless and He'll just overlook it and sweep it under the carpet as if it's not significant at all. It is. Remember, none of these men who were invited shall taste my banquet because of their excuses. But I wouldn't want you to think, on the other hand, that God is stingy with His grace, that somehow He begrudgingly forgives you. You know, you believe in Jesus, and He says, well, I guess there's nothing else I can do now. You believe in Jesus, so I've got to forgive you for your sins. It's not like that at all. He loves to show mercy. Judgment is His strange work, He says in Isaiah 28. And you see that here. He wants His house filled, and so He sends His servants to go and fill the house. Now again, I think this has particular application to Jesus' day. The Jews won't come in. They're going to reject the Son of Glory. They're going to call for His death on the cross. They don't want the Lord Jesus. And God doesn't say, well, that's really too bad. I had hoped that someone would. Well, I guess my house will be empty. No, no, God says, go to the Gentiles. If the Jews won't come in, then go to the Gentiles. Go among the nations, spread throughout all the earth the glories of God in Jesus Christ. Because I want my house filled, I want people saved to taste of my Son Jesus Christ. Not just for their benefit, but for Christ's glory and honor. I want people to delight in Jesus Christ. And so he sends his church on the Great Commission. Go to the nations, go everywhere. and a church that is shaped by this kind of God, who knows the Lord who has saved us, loved to save us, didn't begrudgingly save us, but delighted in our salvation. That's the church that will be involved, busy in bringing Christ to the nations, and bringing the nations to Christ. It's at the very heart of what it means to be a church of the Lord Jesus, to have that same love and passion that God has for the lost. He wants his house filled. How much does he want it? Well, notice this in verse 23. Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in. So it's not just that God says, well, here's the invitation, take it or leave it, do with it what you want. No, he reasons with people. Come now, let us reason together. And he sends his ministers to urge people, to argue with people. to alert people, to alarm them, to say, why would you reject Christ freely offered to you? What would you lose in bending the knee and embracing the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? Do you really think Satan is a better master than Jesus is? Do you think that Jesus services bondage? Not at all, his servants say. Come in. They won't take no for an answer. They compel, they urge, they persuade, they encourage, they ask you, pleading with you. Will you not come to Christ? And they do that because God the Father wants his house filled. It's a beautiful expression of the generosity, the massive capacity of the heart of the holy God as he has demonstrated that in Jesus Christ and in the offer of Christ to the nations. He compels you, come in. Christ has come, Christ has lived. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ has ascended to the right hand of a gracious and generous Father. And He says, come, for everything is now ready. Let's pray. O Lord our God, how great and awesome You are. We see Your greatness in Your majesty and Your power, but also in Your generosity, Your kindness to sinners, Your invitation to Christ, Your promise that all who come to Him will never be cast out, that all who come will have life in his name. We thank you for the feast, the banquet that you provided in Jesus Christ. And we thank you for the grace that you give to us so that we have come to the Lord Jesus. We pray our God for those who have never come. We desire that they would come for Christ's glory, but also for their own happiness and joy and blessing. so we pray that through your word you would compel them to come in so that your house may be filled and so that they might be saved. And we pray this in the name of our dear Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Well let us