The Gospel of Luke, chapter 14. So I'd invite you to take your Bibles at this time and turn to Luke, chapter 14. And we're breaking from our series in the book of Genesis as we've been working through that book. And this morning I thought it appropriate, as we have heard of profession and witness covenant baptism, that we look at the Lord's teaching on how we enter the kingdom. It's a challenging section of Scripture, but one that if we see it for what it is in its beauty, we understand that the Lord is instructing us and assuring us that if we come with the kind of heart that pleases Him, notice here, trusting in His gospel that we are welcomed into His feast, to His table, into His kingdom, and that's what this parable is really exposing. So we will read together this morning in Luke's gospel, beginning at verse 15. Luke 14, verse 15. When one of those who reclined at the 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, five yoke of oxen. I will go to examine them. Please have me excused. and another said, I've married a wife, therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported these things to his master. The master of the house became angry and said to his servant, go out quickly into the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and lame. And the servant said, sir, what you have commanded has been done, and there's still 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. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. Well, one day during the ministry of Jesus, you probably remember well the account when infants were brought to him, they were being carried to him. And remember what happened when that they were brought, they were brought right up to Jesus and they were carried to him that he might put his hands on them and pray. You can picture this. Everyone is wanting to get close to Jesus. Everyone is wanting to come up to Jesus. But these little infants are brought to Jesus. And the thought obviously was, what good is that? They can't understand this. They don't have any understanding of what they're doing. Put them away, Jesus. Put them away. Remember, the disciples rebuked the parents who were bringing the infants. It's fascinating what Jesus then said to counter this. And it's something that I don't know that I've ever fully grasped. It's something that I reflected a lot about this week and realized it is a powerful statement of what he's saying. Remember what he said? Let the little infants come to me. For of such is the kingdom of heaven. In fact, and he goes on to say, truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child or an infant cannot enter it. Whoa, whoa. How does an infant receive the kingdom? And if I don't receive it like an infant, I'm not entering. You stand back and you should say, well, that makes no sense. An infant was brought here this morning And if of such belongs to the kingdom, Jackson, Derek, Tiersma, how did he receive it? That's what Jesus said, unless you receive it like an infant, you're not entering. I want you to think about that this morning because I believe the parable that Jesus has set in front of us in this gospel of Luke answers that. We're entering and we're coming to the table this morning and it's a very similar kind of situation. If you look at verse 15, we have a strange occurrence, a strange situation that has just happened. We read that somebody was sitting at the table with Jesus and out of nowhere, he blurts out, Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. And you say, what in the world is that? I mean, where did that come from? that's odd, that's peculiar, and you really can't understand it until you go back and look at the beginning of chapter 14. If your Bibles are open, what you have at the beginning of chapter 14 is that Jesus comes to one of the homes of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat. Fascinating that a Pharisee would invite him to his great feast. And immediately you should know and be triggered that something is up because you get it with what is followed up look at uh luke chapter 14 uh if you look at verse 1 on the sabbath one sabbath he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the pharisees they were watching him carefully that's the follow-up well in the next verse you read that there was a man there who had the dropsy he was a sick man and you know something's up because the pharisees didn't invite these kind of people into their homes they had planted this man there the man was planted there they have invited jesus to their home with the goal of catching jesus in a trap to see if jesus would heal this man on the sabbath so the pharisees have this great feast this great ruler well-known ruler of the pharisees hosts this great feast and with this goal of planning this man to catch jesus in a trap well jesus kills him and asking is it not lawful to heal on the sabbath one of you has an ox that falls into a ditch you hypocrites you would certainly go get out the ox well i want you to notice not only were they observing him but in verse seven he was observing them did you catch that look at it it says that he notes that they chose the best places he had come to this pharisee's house and he starts to look around and he sees that all of he's rich and all the influential and all of the high of society are sitting there with the Pharisees and then they had purposely planted this defiled man to see what Jesus would do and he says that in verse 7 when he noticed how they chose the places of honor and he goes on then in verse 8 and launches into an explanation of how they all should have taken the lowest seat when you are invited go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes he may say to you friend move up higher then you'll be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted you'll notice in verse 14 that he says to the man who had invited him now notice that He spoke to those who were invited. This is purposeful. And then he speaks to the one who had invited him. So he looked, and what does he say? When you give a dinner or a banquet, don't invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your 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, and the blind. Now, here it is. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. Jesus just exposed their hearts. And then he says something that must have jolted them. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. That is so crucial to understanding the parable that follows this. What did the Jews believe about the resurrection? Well, we know from Isaiah chapter 25 what they believed about the great day of the feast that was coming. This is Isaiah chapter 25. Now listen carefully to this. On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, a rich food full of marrow, of aged wine, well refined. That's what they all were looking for. The problem was is that Israel had fallen into an entire system that was antithetical to the gospel system. In other words, they had all of their rules. They had all of their commandments. They had all of their feast washings. They couldn't even properly enter into the feast without going through great hand washings 613 commandments they had not only put up here but then they had superimposed on top of those commandments all of these man-made traditions the tradition of the elders but the greatest concern exposed here is that the whole system was full of hypocrisy they may have been talking about how to be sanctified they may have been talking about how to live the Christian life, but deep down they were doing none of it. It was all about their own glory, and they're having a feast now. Why are they having a feast? Well, they're inviting guests, and they're inviting the guests who could benefit them. Those who had the status, those who had the money, those who had everything that they could offer them. Well, it's in this context that one of the Pharisees at that moment sits there after he hears Jesus' teaching. That must have been a little bit of a downer. Blurts out, blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom. You hypocrite, right? What in the world is that? I'm assuming the wine was flowing a little bit too much. Throws up his glass. It sounds like a grand toast, doesn't it? Hey, blessed is he who's going to eat bread in the kingdom. Let's toast to it. You can hear all the Pharisees, amen, amen, amen, amen. You almost get the sense that this guy's correcting Jesus' hyper-negativity. Can you hear it? We're not so far from this, are we? We have a song that sounds like this. What a day that will be. What a day that will be. The song goes like this. When we all get to heaven. what a day of rejoicing that will be when we all see Jesus we'll sing and shout the victory onward to the prize before us soon his beauty will behold soon the pearly gates will open we shall tread the streets of gold doesn't that sound a little bit like the pharisee it's as if Jesus at this moment says will you will you who will eat bread in the kingdom who is going to eat bread in my kingdom. Who do you think enters the kingdom? Who do you think is going to be there on that day on the mountain with God eating? Because I've got news for you guys. It's not everyone. In fact, Jesus is bursting a big self-righteous bubble right now. Well, then he breaks into this parable that answers this problem. But he said to them, This is verse 16, 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. I and I go to examine them. Please have me excused. And another said, I've married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So this really remarkable man, Jesus tells the story, has this great feast. And he sends out the invitation, and it has this great seal on it. I mean, this is going to be a great feast. This is going to be the feast of feasts. The invitation went out, but then at the time of the supper, He went out again and he said, come, for it's ready. So in those days, you had a double invitation system. You had the initial invite that everyone would respond to, kind of like an RSVP. You responded, hey, we'll be there. You'd send the invitation out. The person would accept. And then right before the feast, the announcement would come that it's all ready. We've gone to a lot of work to get this feast ready. and we're now giving the summons, come. Well, initially they all responded. At supper time, they were called, come. What happens in this scene? Well, it's really fascinating. We know that he's striking at something. The Pharisees had just invited all the best of society. And everyone was concerned about seats in there. It's sad that we're not really concerned about seats here because everyone fills up from the back to the front, but I had to get that in. The implication here is that Jesus is using the example of their feast to test how it would hold up in the kingdom of God. So, in other words, let's test your feast with God's feast and see how it would hold up. How would it work? What would happen if God did a feast like you guys are doing the feast? So this gracious man he describes throws this grand feast. The implication here is that he went out and he called in all the well-to-do. He called in all the noteworthy people, all the fine, upstanding, moral people of the day. He handpicked the best. That's what he did. But what happened? Well, come. But then when the final call came, they all began to make excuses. Listen to the excuses. You need to understand here, what Jesus has just done is absolutely off the wall. In other words, in Jewish culture, these feasts were life. I mean, this was your social life. This is what you did. There wasn't a lot of exciting things happening in Israel. Trust me, this was it. And he describes a situation that none of them would have known. And as a matter of fact, they would have said, is this guy, is he kidding? Who wouldn't come to the feast? This would not happen in Israel. This would never happen in Israel. So he tells this story. This master has a feast and all the excuses start coming. The first says, well, I bought a piece of ground and I must go see it. I ask you to have me excused. The man had money, and land was of way more priority than the feast. Another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen. This is a well-to-do man. I'm going to go test them. Didn't you test them before you bought them? It gets worse. Still, another said, I have a married wife, therefore I cannot come. Yeah, throw your wife under the bus, buddy. I mean, that's just an awful thing to say. What wife wouldn't come to a feast, you know? wives beg their husbands to take them out to something this is ridiculous and you see what the parable is exposing it's the awful attitude of these kinds of people there's no real interest in coming to the feast and you say why well what might you expect for the banquet you would expect people to be beating down the door to get in the feast right knocking down the doors. We would expect people anxiously to come to the feast, right? I mean, he's put a feast before us today. We would expect people anxious to come, not worried about clocks and time and all that. We want to come. Why aren't they coming? I want you to think of the scene. He's at a Pharisee's house. What kind of dinner? Well, Luke 16 tells us that the Pharisees were lovers of money. You are those, Jesus says in Luke 16, who justify yourselves before men. God knows your hearts. God's reading your hearts. Maybe this will help you. What was their dinner like? I want you to think of a fundraising dinner. A fundraising dinner for their own glory. What's the problem with fundraising dinners? I don't like fundraising dinners. I'm thankful for fundraising dinners when we're doing it for Christian causes, but they're difficult. What about a worldly fundraising dinner? If you're the one who's done the inviting, who are you inviting? You're inviting those who have the name, who have the money, who can offer the most. Jesus then looks at the one who did the inviting and says, see, you are doing the inviting. Here's who you should invite. I noticed that USC had somebody just donate, I think it was like $200 million. Their name is all over the campus dormitory now. I mean, it's everywhere. You think they're getting the best seat at the next donor dinner? What Jesus describes is a crazy scene where this generous man had a banquet, invited all these people, but at final call, no one came. Unthinkable. They all paid lip service. But when it came down to it, they would not enter the dining hall. What a sad scene. This gracious man, who no one deserved to come into his great feast, he had opened up the hall for him. He opened up the door wide. He invited the best, and no one valued it. I've got better things to do. Which you interject. Is that a little bit of a common mentality to the church today? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Verse 21, so the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. Where does he go? I want you to go into the back alleys. I want you to go out into the streets. I was walking down in San Diego's harbor a few weeks ago, early in the morning, dropping off someone at the airport. And I thought, I'm going to walk down this. There was nobody out there early. And I couldn't believe how many homeless people lined that. It was absolutely remarkable. And they had their little money cans, and they would say, please, please, please. They lived there. It's their life. This would be like a servant, the servant. Walking down there on Saturday morning and saying, early in the morning, 6 a.m., hey, you guys, tonight, we want you to come over to the Hilton. And we want you to join this feast this man is throwing, this wonderful man. He'll care for you. He'll provide for you. He'll help you. He'll feed you. He'll clean you up. He's got a home for you. Come. We want you to come. And if you've already picked up on this, These are the very ones Jesus mentioned they should have invited back in chapter 13, those whom he told the Pharisees to invite their homes with and dine with. But here's where I'm most moved. The really powerful thing about this parable is the way the master says it. I want you to think about this. If you went to all these classes of people who are mentioned here. The poor, the crippled, the maimed, the blind. Who can get there on their own? What poor man has garments to come? What blind man can see to find the way? What crippled man can walk? What lame man has the ability to get there? and then the master accentuates this and says well i did this the servant says he says well there's still room and the master says well then go to the highways and the hedges don't just go to the city get out into the slums and and go compel them you've got to compel them to come that my house may be full the imagery here is this they knew you couldn't just convince these people easily. Why? Because these people live in a world where no one pays attention to them. These people live in a world where nobody cares about them. These people are left to fend for themselves. And you probably just couldn't persuade somebody easily that somebody, a gracious man, would ever open up the Hilton for them. They've been begging all their life. No one pays attention. And here's the heart of it. What's in their minds? We can't pay him back. If we go to this feast, you understand, dear servant, we have nothing to offer this man. We have no ability to write checks. We have nothing to offer this gracious host. I mean, if anything, we're filthy and we're smelly. He can't really want us to come in. He can't really want us to come in to his feast. And that's the heart of the parable. Go out quickly to the lanes and the streets and bring them in. You know how you could translate that? Carry them. Lead them. They can't get here on their own. I love to think upon how he emphasizes this. Take my limo. If you need boys and girls, take my limousine and pick them up. And then go to the east side and go to where no one dares to go. Go to the filth, go to the slum, go to the poverty-stricken areas. Compel these people to come that my house may be full. Persuade them strongly. Convince them strongly that I really want them at my house. I want you to really convince them that my house is for them. In other words, in great contrast to those who said they would come, but really had no real need to come, really weren't overly interested in it, These would be thrilled to be there. These would love to be there. They never would have dreamed in a million years that they could come to a man's house like this and feast with him and be given a seat like this. Now, when you put all this together this morning, Jesus just described the most absurd scenario, a wonderful feast of a gracious man. And what he just described is something that would never happen in their world. But here's the tragedy. It's happening in the kingdom of God. God announces a feast that's coming. And there's a whole bunch of people doing really well. And what dominated the lives of these people? You notice what Jesus raised about them? They were tied to possessions and family. all of that exposed that those two things had way more priority than really being at the feast. Family. Possessions. And there's no sense. This is what grieves me today. I look at people, the spiritual life, where's the life? There's no sense that they're not doing well and that the kingdom may be shut to them by that very attitude. Do they know that they're wretched, poor, blind, and naked? I mean, that's what Revelation said. When Christ looked at the church in Laodicea, what was his chief criticism of that church? Because you say you're rich and of wealthy and of need of nothing, but you don't know. What a tragedy. You don't know that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Here's where we get to the meaning of the parable. The kingdom of Jesus Christ had come upon them. God had sent everything that the law and the prophets throughout history had looked for. He sent His beloved Son. And Christ was saying the whole time. What was He saying the whole time? He was raising His hand and He was saying, Come to me, all you who are what? Rich and doing well and confident in yourself. No, come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden. and I'll give you rest. But the Gospels say that many would not come to Him that they may have life. You wonder what that would look like today in the church, right? Would it be a show? The way they had approached the kingdom of God, it was all about them. It was all about their name. It demonstrated that their whole lives had not even come. This is not about name recognition. This is not about our honor when we're offended. This is not about a good old boy system that if we just follow the rules, God will be pleased with us. This is not about the tradition of the elders. That if we keep the tradition of the elders to a T, God will be pleased. This is not about my personal rights. This is not about my honor, my name, my status. No, take the back door seat. Because that kind of spirit demonstrates, I can't repay the man. You see, Israel didn't come to her Messiah. That's really what this is saying. And they gave lame excuses. Lame excuses. And Jesus was not stroking false confidence. Encouraging it. And that's why tonight's message said, you know, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards when God brought you into the kingdom. This is tonight's message. Not many of you were very wise at all. This is kind of humbling for a pastor. I was not wise. We can go over test scores later. Not many were of noble birth. God chose what's foolish to this world to put to shame the wise. God chose what's weak in the world to put to shame the strong. God chose what's low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. Why? So that no human being may boast in the presence of God. He fills his hall with the messy. He fills his dinner with the guilty. He fills the dinner with the struggling sinners who realize they have no and nothing to offer him, that they would never believe that a good man would ever have allowed him in, who stand in shock that God spread a table this morning for them and opened the kingdom and with loving persuasion. Says, come, I want you to be here. I want you at my table. The limousine picked them up and the limousine dropped them off. And those blind and cold and naked sit here and they receive. If anyone doesn't go into the kingdom of heaven, listen, this is so important. If anyone ends up in hell, it's not because they were withheld from something they wanted. Do we understand that? The imagery here is their whole life was pictured as rejecting it. And that's why Jesus says at the very end of the parable in verse 24, I tell you none of those who were invited shall taste my banquet. There will be people who don't enter. There will be people who don't enter. How did this service begin this morning then? An infant was carried. Mom and dad carried an infant who had no ability, who had no strength, who had no understanding. And we stand back and say, ah, should we really give a sign to a child who has none of that? We struggle with that. And Jesus said, see them? See those infants? That's how you enter. Why would you deny the sign then? The sign of the kingdom if that's how we enter. Let the little infants come, for of such is the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like that little infant right there, you're not coming in. You must be carried by grace. And being carried, then what happens? Well, you saw it with Thomas this morning. You saw the whole life. Something radical happened. A young man who, contrary to his whole entire nature, contrary to his life, contrary to everything, stood up and said, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm a great sinner, and I need a Savior. He said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And God says, the table's for you. I throw open my table for you. It's not a fundraising dinner. There's no red carpet here. God carries us because from the beginning, God called us. Paul said, from the time of my womb, God had called me. And he gives us the faith to profess him. And he leads us to the table prepared before us in the wilderness, anticipating the day when we will eat and drink anew in the kingdom. This whole Christian life was put on display for you this morning. And see how encouraging it is? If it's our way, there's no hope. but if it's God's way and you see your sin, there's great hope and an answer to us today. Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom, said this man. Jesus answered us, okay? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Amen.