The New Testament reading for today is from Luke 14, verses 15 through 24. 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. 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 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 servants came and reported these things to the 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 are invited shall taste my banquet. Let's pray and ask God's blessing on the reading of his word. Father, we confess that your word, the word that was read to us this morning are not mere words on a page, but you have revealed to us that they have within them life. that your spirit does his work of illumination, of sanctification, and even regeneration through what is written in your word. I ask, Father, that as we look at this passage today that has this very world-like story, that you would help each one of us to apply it to ourselves. May each person here find in this passage The motivation for repentance, whether it's repentance of something big or repentance of something small. Whether it is the repentance of turning from sin or the repentance of changing one's mind about who Jesus truly is. May your word teach us better how to love your son. For we confess, Father, that we love him. And we pray, Father, for your grace in this time. In your son's holy name, amen. I don't usually like to give commercials, but since I heard Mark gave his commercial for Sunday school, that you can hear about Superman and Spider-Man in Sunday school while hearing about Jesus. That sounds like a pretty good deal. Well, on Tuesday nights, you can hear about the Targum Neophyte and the Midrash Rabbah while hearing about Jesus. Also, years ago, when we were going through the book of Matthew, I remember this day specifically, I asked Don DeClean to read a passage, not discerning what the passage was about, and Don, being a carpenter and a contractor, read it, and it was all about removing the plank from your eye before you remove the sawdust from your brother's eye. And I thought, how appropriate that we had a carpenter read that and I didn't even do it on purpose. And today. Did you guys catch Psalm 37 37. You didn't see that. It said Mark the blameless man. Sorry. How about we look at the Bible? As we've seen earlier in this chapter, Jesus has been invited to a meal at the house of a leader of the Pharisees. And lest we impose our Western 21st century ideals upon the passage, let's understand a little bit about who the Pharisees were. I've made this point before, that the Pharisees, as far as Judaism was concerned, was the best of the best. They were those who tried to follow the law as best they could, and they were very well respected within the tribe of Judaism. However, one thing else we should know about Phariseeism, because we throw the word around very much due to Jesus' condemnation of some of the things that the Pharisees taught. We throw that word around very much. where we say about somebody who perhaps is pious on the outside and unholy on the inside, and we say that person is a Pharisee. Well, there's another person in the scripture who designates himself to be a Pharisee, and that's the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul twice says that he is a Pharisee. He doesn't say, I was a Pharisee. He says, I am a Pharisee. And this is while he is preaching and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a moniker that he wore without shame that he was a Pharisee. So just to get a grasp and a grip of what this means, the Pharisees were these men who had become acquainted with the scriptures and they had ordered and ordained their entire life surrounding the keeping of the law. And for many of them, I don't know of most of them, but perhaps most of them, the keeping of the law was simply so that they could honor Christ. And they were encouraging their fellow Jews that through this keeping of the law, we'll honor Christ, we need to follow the Torah. And Christ will reward us, not Christ, God will reward us when we obey the Torah, when we keep the mitzvahs, the commandments of the Torah. And so it's in the house of this leader of the Pharisees, someone who would have been respected, surrounded by other men who would have been respected, And a man proclaims in the midst of that verse 15 says, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. The question is, what sparks this proclamation by the guest in this feast? Now as we pointed out last week and I think the week before, I'll go for three in a row, that these social events and these socio-religious events that the Pharisees partook in tended to be events in which people climbed the social and religious ladder. If you wanted to be thought of as someone who is more lofty and more holy and had higher rank within the kingdom of God in the future, then what you would do is you would invite people who were of high spiritual value. You wouldn't invite the lowest of people. You would invite those who would really make your banquet look good, look spiritual. And then as you gained spiritual rank within their community, As people began to see you as a spiritual leader among the Pharisees, perhaps, or even in the synagogue, or even greater in the Sanhedrin, as you started to gain some kind of spiritual clout, what you would start to see is all of a sudden, it wasn't you who's inviting the high-ranked, high-value people. But now people are inviting you so that you would add clout to their gathering. And this was a practice that went on throughout the intertestamental period. And in fact, in some senses, it still goes on today within that community. Jesus uses this practice all the way back in chapter 14 verse 7. He uses this practice to tell them about themselves. Remember that he says now he told a parable. So he's going to tell them beginning in verse 7, about themselves. And what he describes after that seems to be a simple description of what has just occurred. And yet, because Luke calls it a parable, we understand that this is a directed description. He's teaching them something. And these instructions that Jesus gives following verse 7 while socially valuable, coincide with the instructions that we found back in chapter 13. In fact, it culminates in the summary statement of 1411, excuse me, 1411, which says, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Jesus then is not merely describing the situation, he's making a very pointed criticism of the practice that's going on and demonstrating how that practice reveals something even greater about their spiritual condition. And essentially, the advice that he gives is this, don't use hospitality as a means to try to gain points among the spiritual elite. Rather, make yourself rich towards God by using your opportunity to exalt and care for the poor and the indigent. Now on the heels of this scolding that Jesus gives them, it seems that one of the men there uses a point of agreement to break the tension. Now you can imagine as Jesus gives this very pointed advice, he says, listen, you guys need to not seek for the highest position, number one, and number two, you need to not use these social gatherings and these quote-unquote spiritual events to increase your spiritual capital in the eyes of your friends, you need to use them to actually care for people. You can imagine that as he's sitting there as an invited guest saying this out loud for everyone to hear, because he scolds the person who invited him to the feast, that there might be a smidge of tension in the air, just a little. I told you guys before that Costalises don't deal with tension very well, that in my family, we've always dealt with tension by breaking it with humor. Some of you have heard this story, but I think it illustrates why you'd want to break tension. Not long ago, I was at a community meeting up in Mountain View, and everyone was angry. They're furious. The county had dropped the speed limit there from 50 down to 35. And everyone was mad. They were so angry. And it wasn't just that they were angry. They had some legitimate beefs and gripes. It had really caused a traffic issue. And it had caused a bunch of safety issues up there that people were bringing to the forefront. But it was very interesting when I walked into this cafeteria where the meeting was held, people were not even looking and talking with their neighbors, almost like they wanted to reserve their anger. Like, I ain't going to say anything until I get a chance to explode on whoever's in front of this meeting right here. And sure enough, when they opened up for questions, there were no questions. There was a flurry of angry, passionate statements and declarations. You guys messed everything up here and tensions were getting higher and they were building and these poor, these two road engineers from the state that came from Honolulu were having to stand in front of the whole group and I kid you not. I'm going to step to the side here just for a second so you can see their body language. They were like this. Just absorbing and absorbing abuse. And it was a little bit funny, but I really felt bad for these guys. The temperature in the room kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter. People were getting angrier and angrier. And finally I raised my hand. And you could see people had said their piece. And when they were done saying their piece, some people were like breathing heavy. And I raised my hand on the side. And the person who was in charge called on me and said, this gentleman hasn't had an opportunity to ask a question yet. Remember, there were no questions there. I raised my hand and I stood up and I said, so I think we can all agree here, what we need is rail. And you saw, because I was standing way off to the right, you saw all these angry people going, and all of a sudden, every single head went. And the two engineers up front who had completely closed in on themselves looked at each other And they looked at the moderator, they looked out at the crowd, and they said, no, I'm just kidding. And the whole place erupted into laughter. One of the engineers started crying. He was laughing so hard, he was wiping tears from his face. But sometimes you feel that, right? When you feel tension in a room and you think, maybe that tension's not necessary. Sometimes tension's necessary. Sometimes you think maybe the tension is not necessary and one way to break the tension is to call everyone to something on which we all agree. And so this man at the feast, he doesn't crack a joke. as Jesus is scolding people for climbing the social religious ladder and using these feasts to do it. And he literally tells them at one point, those who humble themselves are going to be abased. All of you who are climbing the ladder, you're going to be, I mean, all the humble are going to be exalted. All those who are climbing the ladder are going to be abased. The tension is in the room. And one guy speaks up and says, hey, whoever gets to the kingdom, blessed, right? Blessed is anyone who eats bread in the kingdom of heaven. And folks, with that, what you would expect to hear in a crowd of Pharisees and religious people, when someone says something about the glories of the kingdom, what you expect to hear is, amen. Amen. Amen. In other words, yes, let it be so. Blessed is everyone who will eat in the kingdom. What could be wrong with that statement? Tons. Yeah, it's true. that blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But Jesus has already told them that their lifelong ambition of being godly and elevated and special and the best of the best is going to yield for them nothing. Jesus keeps reiterating over and over again and wants them to understand this. He's essentially saying to them, do you understand that you are in serious danger of not being in the kingdom yourself? Blessed is he who eats bread in the kingdom of God. Yes, but you might not be one of those. Do you get that, Pharisees? Is essentially what Jesus is saying. Jesus keeps reiterating. If you exalt yourself, you will be humbled. This is exactly what he said in the previous chapter at the previous engagement, chapter 13, verse 29, when he says, and people are going to come from the east and the west and the north and the south and recline at the table in the kingdom of God. And then he says this in verse 30, and behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last. In other words, some of you who think you're at the front of the line, are gonna be cast out and you're not even gonna have a part in this. In other words, unless you repent, unless you change your mind about who Jesus is, unless you repent, you will not be there. Now folks, why is this such a big deal? It's a big deal because for the Pharisees, the idea of them, they believed that by birthright all Jews were going to be a part of the kingdom. But then they also understood that if you kept the mitzvahs of the Torah, if you kept the commandments of the law as well as they did, not only were you going to be in the kingdom, but you were going to be serving in this high and lofty place within the kingdom. You were going to have rank in the kingdom. It never once crossed their mind that they wouldn't even be there. So with this man, who may just be trying to break the tension, it is completely missed the fact that his soul, as well as the souls of all those at the dinner, are in grave, mortal, eternal, spiritual danger. Historically, this is the last time in Luke that Jesus ate with the Pharisees. He's not going to have another feast like this with them. This is the last offer of eternity to them, and he wants them to get the full picture of what's going on. So what does he do? He gives to them a parable. Verse 16. He said to them, he said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many. Now in their system of banquets, there was usually a two-stage process to the invitation. There would be the first invitation, the first part would be an announcement of the coming feast, and the second part would be an announcement of the ready feast. So you had an announcement of the coming feast and you would send servants out and they would say there is a great banquet that is coming and you are invited and those people were required then by decorum to RSVP. Yes, I will be at the feast or no, I won't be at the feast at that first announcement. What that did is it gave the banquet holder, it gave the Lord an opportunity to go then and prepare the feast knowing how many people were going to show up, how many people would be there because all these people had indicated they're coming to this banquet. He would prepare the banquet and they would have an around date sometime during this week These three days, we're going to have a banquet. Be ready. And people would prepare themselves and be ready. Then when the Lord of the feast had prepared the banquet, he would send out another servant. And that servant, or a group of servants, would say, the feast is now ready. And people would start to stream in from all over the city, people who had been invited. And they would all come and enjoy the feast on that very date. Verse 17 says, talks about that second stage, the announcement of the ready feast. Verse 17 says, and at that time for the banquet, he sent his servant, notice singular, servant, to say to those who had been invited, come for everything now is ready. So what does this represent here so far? Obviously, the feast is representing the kingdom of God. It's representing eternity. We have a group of servants who go out. It doesn't say that, but it says that the invitation was first sent out. And so the first invitation is sent out by a group of people. The second invitation or announcement is by one person. The first invitation has to represent the prophets of old announcing the coming kingdom. And there are all kinds of indications in the Old Testament as to when the king would be born. In Daniel, we hear about when he would be born. In Micah, we hear about where he would be born. Bethlehem, right? In Daniel, we read that it's before the destruction of the temple and 480 some years after their release from Persia. And so we have these two indications. Isaiah says that it's going to be a virgin birth. The Lord himself will give you a sign, Isaiah says. And some have disputed that. I know they've disputed and said that the word that Isaiah uses doesn't mean virgin. It just means young woman. If that's the case, then what's the sign? A young girl's going to have a child. That's not a sign. That's an everyday occurrence. I mean, not for the same girl, but across humanity, that's something we see every day. Young girls have babies. So it does talk about the virgin birth. Now, verse 17 has a soul servant who goes out and announces that the feast is here. It's time for the kingdom. This is probably a reference to John the Baptist. John the Baptist is announcing that the kingdom and the king are here. Feast is ready. But notice what verse 18 says, they all alike began to make excuses. They didn't have the same excuse, but they had a unified result. And probably here because they had colluded together and there was a unified purpose. They all began to make excuses and take note of what the text says because not one of them is legitimate. The first says, I have bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. Think about that, folks. He went out and bought a field, and this is before photography or Google Earth. He bought a field, and he never bothered to look at it. Does that sound likely? No. Also, let's say that it was likely. Let's say that he sent some kind of emissary out to go look at the field for him, which is a possibility. And now he needs to go look at the field. If the banquet is today, will the field still be there tomorrow? So it's very obvious from that excuse that he is just trying to politely excuse himself, though it's not polite. But he's trying to excuse himself without being called out from this great offense. Look at the next guy. Another guy says, I bought five yoke of oxen. So a yoke of oxen is two. So he's bought 10 oxen. And I go to examine them. Please have me excused. Same thing goes, you didn't look at the oxen before you bought them? Those oxen, are they going to die tonight? That you can't look at them tomorrow? The third excuse has a ring of spirituality to it. It has a ring of spirituality to it because in the Old Testament law, when a man got married, he was excused from military duty for one year so that he could get to know his wife and that they could start their family together. It didn't excuse him from banquets. In fact, his new wife might actually appreciate the banquet. Oh, good, a feast that I'm not in charge of. I don't have to clean the house. I don't have to cook. Take me. Each one of these excuses is lame. Each one of these excuses is, Exactly that. It's an internal lust looking for an excuse. Right? And we can do that. We understand the nature of that passage. When you really don't want to do something, you can make up all kinds of excuses why you shouldn't do that. Last week I was lifting in the gym and I was tired. And so I told the lady who owns the gym, I'm just going to go around and talk to people about politics and they'll just run me off. See if they'll just kick me out of the gym. I could have just left. I was looking for an excuse. I didn't talk to people about politics. I went around and told people that if I don't leave now, I'm going to start talking to everybody about politics. I'm going to ask you who your favorite president is, and then I'll leave. And so she said, yeah, you should probably leave first. None of these are legitimate excuses. It's an internal lust. It's an internal desire that's looking for a reason. And they give these lame reasons that don't make sense. Verse 21 says, 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. Now if in this verse the poor, the crippled, and the blind and lame are being invited, why didn't he invite them in the previous verse? Why did he invite all of the other people in that verse? I think the reason for that is because Jesus is keeping with the normal tradition, and the normal tradition is that you invite to your banquet the elite. And so he's demonstrating in this parable how they're inviting the elite. And I think also in this parable that the elite, the spiritually elite, represents something. the spiritually elite that are invited first to the great banquet are the Pharisees. They're the religious leaders. They're the scribes. They're the people who know the law. They know the Torah very well. They're the ones with most access to the initial invitation. And what is the initial invitation? It's the writings of the prophets. Well, what do the Pharisees and the scribes do all day? They pour over the writings of the prophets. So who's in the first invitation, the first group of invitation? It's these religious elite, just like they always are. They're the ones who know the prophecies. They're the ones who make lame excuses so that they won't have to accept Jesus as the Messiah. But notice then that after he invites these people, he invites the religious elites, and they all, with one voice, turn their back on him. He turns to other people in the city, but those who are less desirable from in the city. Verse 22 says, the servant said, Sir, what you commanded has been done and there's still room. So who are the people in the city? The people in the city are probably other Jews. They're all part of Jerusalem. And once all of those are in, he says, there's still more room. What should we do? Verse 23 says, 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. Highways and hedges here are outside the city. They're in the countryside. And often this kind of, these words refer to Gentiles. So not just common Jews, but also now the banquet will be populated by those least likely to find it. That's why verse 24 says, for I tell you, none of those men who are invited shall taste my banquet. Who's not going to be there? It's the religious elite. who have for their own selfish purposes climbed the social religious ladder and for their own selfish purposes have rejected the authority and messiahship of Jesus. Do you see that? The harsh conclusion then is the emphasis, those who think that they are owed the kingdom are not going to get the kingdom. And the invitation then is going to go out to all of the lesser thens. All of the lesser thens. And let me remind you again, who is this book written to? This is Luke writing to Theophilus. Who's Theophilus? Theophilus is a giant representation of all the lesser-thans. Luke says at the beginning, chapter one, verse four, I write these things to you so that you'll be sure of the things that you've heard. Yes, yes, Theophilus. You're invited. You're invited. I'd like to take now this passage and make four applications. These applications come from probably one of the most technical commentaries that I have on the book of Luke from Daryl Bach, who doesn't make very many applications, but he made these applications are similar to them. I adjusted them a little bit, but they're similar to them. So I thought, well, he does that, I might as well I might as well use that. Application number one. There will be a point. Of final invitation. There will be a point of final invitation. Listen folks, the Pharisees did not know it, but Jesus would never again sit with them as a group and offer them eternal life. This is his last invitation to this group of people, and some individuals would trust. But it is significant that this is the last offer. It might be considered just a byproduct of time and space that they are given a last invitation, but that same byproduct of time and space is issued to us, and that is this. As much as the Lord may be tugging on your heart, as much as the Spirit may be convicting you and convincing you of sin, understand this, folks, that there will be a last call. It occurred to me that there are only two ways that the final offer comes. Number one, You will embrace the beauty of Christ and turn to him. Or number two. You will die in your sins. And face eternal damnation. It cannot be more straightforward than that folks. Any invitation you get from Christ. Do not take lightly. The Pharisees wanted to dismiss Jesus' words with a religious quip. They wanted to dismiss the tension by saying, ah, blessed is everyone who eats bread in the kingdom of God. Because of Jesus' love for their souls, because of Jesus' love for them, Jesus reminded them yet again and finally that unless you repent and understand who I am, You will not have any part. Folks, understand this application. Jesus loves you and will offer you eternal life, but one of those offers will be his final offer. Do not do what the Pharisees did. Do not dismiss him so casually. Do not dismiss his immense life-giving love for you. Trust him. Today is the day of salvation. There will be a final offer. There will be a final call, invitation. Number two, Jesus is the star of your life and eternity. Jesus is the star of your life and eternity. My family went and visited Karen's family in South Texas a couple of years ago. First time in a long time, the cousins got to kind of hang out together. And then after, I don't know, I think about a week of us just being in each other's business all the time, one of their cousins said, man, your family should be a sitcom. That made me laugh. I was wondering in that who would be the star of the sitcom. They all, I think they all tried to claim at one time they were. Everybody else was, you know, side characters. But the fact of the matter is, whatever your life is, whether it's a sitcom or a drama, you're not the star. Jesus is. Jesus, this is about Christ, this is about Jesus. I don't remember who it was, but years ago, I was back here, and it was somebody younger, I don't remember who it was, and they were crying about something, and I was talking to them, and they were, I don't know, in tears, and then they kind of said, I'm okay, you can go back in to start the service, and I just smiled at them, and I said, They're not going to start without me. I've actually used that since then, but I usually use that for brides and grooms when I'm doing weddings, and they get nervous. And I'm like, well, we're not going to start without you. Just do what you've got to do. Well, here's the fact, is that we're not the star, and they will start without us. The kingdom will start. Eternity will start. Jesus is the focus. not the religious elite, and certainly not me or you. Number three, those excluded from the kingdom, and please hear this, those excluded from the kingdom will be excluded by their own insistence. Outside of those alive at the time of Christ, there are not many groups of people in history more spiritually privileged than we are in the United States today. I mean, we live in a time that is judged, that is measured by the life of Christ. What year is it? It's, well, what year is it? 2023? Just a second, I forgot. That means it's 2023 years after the birth of Christ, sort of, with a miscalculation in there somewhere in the beginning. But that's the gauge, even though, you know, even though we can't say AD and BC anymore, we have to say BCE before the Common Era, or CE, the Common Era, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I get that, but what does it mean? I mean, yeah, the common era, when did the common era start? The birth of Christ, right? So I don't know, they can do that if they want, but it still centers around Jesus. Everything about our lifetime, everything about our history points back to Jesus. We have churches all over the place. Sometimes we have churches side by side. Proclaiming the truth of the gospel. Right there and right here. I don't know what's going on in the house over there, but maybe there too. And you know what the house across the street? Maybe they're watching somebody online or on TV and the gospel is everywhere. We grow up with the name of Jesus everywhere. Every year we at least celebrate two religious holidays. Christmas, Easter, the birth of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. We can throw in some of the highlights of church history in there too. St. Valentine's. Better not forget that one. For 50 or more years, we've watched John 3, 16 flashed across the end zone of every football game. But just as those in the time of Christ, we will be excluded from the kingdom by our own insistence. And by the way, as I've said before, a lot of them knew who Jesus was. John chapter 12 says, nevertheless, many, even the authorities, believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogues. Now notice even in this passage in John 11 what they say and what they don't say. Some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Speaking about the miracles that he was doing. John 11, 47 says, So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. The word signs there is the word semeion. It's often translated as miracle. What are we going to do? We're terrified. This guy is doing miracles. Oh no. If we let him go on like this, everyone is going to believe in him. Yeah. But listen, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. We're going to lose all of our political authority that we've spent lifetimes building up. One of them Caiaphas who was High Priest that year said to them, you know nothing at all, nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. It's an amazing statement, isn't it? What don't they say? What they say is we need to curtail Jesus, who is doing miracles to prove that he's the Messiah. We need to stop him, because if we don't stop him, Rome is gonna take away our authority, destroy our whole structure of the Sanhedrin, and all of our religious authority is gonna disappear, and they might even not allow us to be our own nation anymore. What do they say and what do they not say? You know what they don't say? This guy's doing miracles, but he's not the Messiah. They don't say that. They don't address that. They don't care about that. They reject Christ in mass. Why? They insist on being excluded from the kingdom. So those excluded will be excluded by their own insistence. And number four, the feast is not delayed. The feast is not delayed. They're not gonna hold anything up for you. They're not gonna say, wait, hold on. One more person isn't quite believing yet. Let's give them another couple of years. The feast is not delayed. Notice that in this parable, the feast is right on time. It continues right on schedule. Whole different crew of guests, but it's filled and it commences. The feast is not delayed. Folks, it is not my intention to manipulate you into trusting Christ, but I want you to understand this, that the beauty of Christ and who he is and what he has done can only be overlooked if you willfully choose to reject him. Not only are you all in the United States of America today and have all the privileges that are there, but you're sitting in this church under this preaching this morning. There are no excuses. You're not going to go to the throne room of God someday or before the judgment seat of God and say, you know what, Kahu just wasn't clear. He talked for too long and saved all the good stuff for the end when I fell asleep. Well, you might say that, but it's not a good excuse. I'm telling you folks, today is the day of salvation. Let's pray. Father, we have been drawn to the beauty of Christ. We love Him. and are in awe of the fact that he would take the punishment for our sins so that we don't have to. Father, should there be anyone here this morning who knows not Christ, maybe someone who's been playing the role, who've been setting themselves up as the religious elite and yet have not Christ, I ask, Lord, that they would bow the knee before him this morning. That they would change their minds about who He is. That they would, this morning, love Him. And it's in His name we pray. Amen.