Invited to the Party

A lavish wedding banquet is ready, the doors are open, and the invitation is free. Then the unthinkable happens: the guests shrug, make excuses, and wander off to their farms and businesses as if the King’s celebration is optional. We open Matthew 22 and sit with the weight of that moment, because Jesus is not just telling an ancient story. He’s exposing how easy it is to ignore God without ever shaking our fist, simply by staying busy and calling it normal.

We also talk about the patience of God, the kind of patience most of us would never offer. The King keeps sending messengers, giving more opportunities to repent than we deserve, yet his patience is not permission to coast. Along the way, we connect the parable to real life: what encouragement looks like when you’re trying to build something from nothing, why delayed obedience hardens over time, and how a terminal diagnosis can snap our priorities into focus and reveal what is truly urgent.

The story turns on one sharp detail: the wedding garment. The issue isn’t whether you received an invite, it’s whether you respond rightly with repentance and faith, “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ” rather than showing up for the benefits. If you’ve ever wondered how church attendance, spiritual habits, judgment, grace, and assurance fit together, this conversation gives you a clear path through the tension: many are called, but few are chosen. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What excuse do you need to drop to say yes to the King’s invitation?

Transcript

Scripture Reading From Matthew 22

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And for the rest of us, I will invite us to stand for the reading of God's Word, which today comes from Matthew 22, beginning in verse 1. The word of God reads this way. And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. But they paid no attention, and went off, one to his farm, and other to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there was a man who had no wedding garment, and he said to him, Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, and may God bless this reading and this preaching of his word.

A Free Invitation That Changed Everything

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When I first started as a church planter, I think that the thing that I needed the most, more than money, more than people, the thing that I needed the most was encouragement. Starting a church like starting a business is difficult and it's lonely, and most people don't believe that you will succeed, or they don't care. I got some encouragement, unexpectedly, in the form of an invitation. A man named Jim Hatch from MA Mission in North America, it's a the church planting arm of the PCA. Jim is a sweet old man, uh church planter who now encourages church planters. But he reached out to me. I'd never met him before, and but he invited me to be part of a church planters cohort in beautiful Birmingham, Alabama. And the deal was that I got to travel down to Birmingham three times in one year. Each visit was about one week long. And during that time, I would, uh it was Cahaba Park Church, which is a wonderful church down there, and I would receive uh training while I was there. I would meet other church planters from around the Midwest mainly in the PCA, and they hosted us in these beautiful homes of elders and church members. I never I didn't realize how many beautiful homes there are in Birmingham. I don't know how they do it, but every backyard has a creek in it in Birmingham. Every one of them. I mean you can cross the street and there's a creek over here, and then you cross the street and there's a creek over there. But they, these gorgeous houses, and they they put us up in their homes for, you know, they and they hosted us with wonderful food. There are many such training programs available for young church planters, but the unique thing about this one is that it was 100% free. It did not cost me a dime. They bought my plane tickets, they booked my flights. They paid for my I didn't even know you could do that for someone else. I thought there was like TSA regulations, but they booked my flights. I just showed up at the airport, I got on the plane. They paid for my lodging and most of my food, they paid for my training. All of this was paid for by generous donors of the church who believed in the importance of church planting. Such a gracious invitation, such an encouragement. It made all the difference. This was back when St. John was just me, and maybe John. It was just me and John. It was just an idea. Once in a lifetime opportunity that I would be a fool to spurn.

The Kingdom As A Lavish Feast

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We're finishing our series today on the parables of the kingdom, and it's a parable about a gracious invitation. The king is throwing a lavish feast to celebrate his son, the marriage of his son. And everyone is invited. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like a feast. It's a rich banquet, it's a celebration. But there is a tension because whether we will be among those who enjoy the feast or who find themselves cast into outer darkness all depends on how we will respond to the king's invitation. How will we respond to the gracious invitation of the kingdom? And as we explore that question, we're going to look at three angles. The king's grace persistently offered. That's number one. And then the king's grace surprisingly refused. And then finally, the king's grace rightly received. So first, the king's grace persistently offered.

Grace Offered With Patience And Severity

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Our gracious God gives us more opportunities to repent than we deserve. He gives us more opportunities to repent than we deserve. A king is throwing a wedding feast for his son, but for some reason his guests are very reluctant to attend. But before we talk about the guests, we should notice the patience and the persistence of the king and also his severity. This parable highlights his persistence and his patience, and also his severity. It appears that there's maybe two or even three attempts to invite the guests to come to the feast. In verse 3, it says, The king sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. And we're going to dig into that a little bit more in the next point. But that it was actually an incredibly offensive thing to do, to refuse this invitation, and we'll see why. But the king does not immediately respond with anger when the guests don't come to the feast. What does he do? Well, he sends out more servants. He sends out another invitation. Verse 4, it says, Again, he sent other servants, saying, Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. And again the guests pay him no mind, they give him no attention. In verse six could even be describing a third attempt. In verse six it says, While the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. This same message of the persistence of the king is echoed in other parables. Immediately before this, Jesus told the parable of the wicked tenants in Matthew. In that parable, a man planted a vineyard and he hired tenants to work it. And when the time for harvest came, he sent his servants to collect the harvest and to collect the proceeds. And there's many groups. The first group they mistreated, the second group they kill, and then finally the king sends his son. So again, the persistence of the king, many attempts to, many opportunities. In Luke, there's a parable about a barren fig tree as Jesus is entering into Jerusalem, if I'm remembering this correctly, the tree produces no fruit. And the master decides he's going to tear it out because it's just wasting space in his garden. But the gardener convinces him to give it one more year. He says, Let me treat it with fertilizer and give it one more opportunity to bear fruit. Before you tear it out, let us give it one more chance before it is uprooted. In all of these parables, we see both the kindness and the severity of God. We see God's kindness in that he gives stubborn people multiple opportunities to repent. He is slow to anger. Our God, He will not be silent forever, but He is slow to anger, and that's a merciful thing. We also see His severity. His kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. The goal is that we would repent. He gives us many opportunities, but his patience will not last forever. When it becomes clear that we will never repent unless something happens, he will take action in judgment. As the prophets say, he will wet his sword. Jesus says in verse 7, the king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. For Matthew's original readers who are reading this gospel for the first time, when they read this, they could not help but think of the people of Israel, to whom God sent many prophets over many hundreds of years, but they did not listen, to whom God finally sent his son, but they rejected him and crucified him. And finally their city was burned by the Romans in 70 AD. And Matthew's original readers are either reading this in the aftermath of that event or very near to that event, so they could not help but but think about that when reading this. We should note the kindness and the severity of God. He is so kind to give us far more opportunities to repent than we deserve. But are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? As Paul asks in Romans 6. By no means, let us not think that because God is patient with us, because He has not yet visited us with discipline or judgment, that we have no need for repentance. That would be foolish. Let us not think that. I know that I struggle to be a patient parent. We will have just finished dinner and I'll be cleaning the kitchen, toiling while my children sit without a care in the world on the couch, reading their books and playing their video game machines. And I'll start to get upset that they are not helping me without being asked. Don't you see my toiling? Don't you that we all we all enjoyed this dinner, and you're just gonna sit there while I clean this up? Then I'll say, hey, you know what would be great? Could you kids help me clean up dinner? That would be great. Sure, Dad, they'll say. And yet they won't lift up their eyes from the book or make any indication that they're actually going to get up and help. I have asked once and they have not obeyed, and that's about how much patience I have. Right? At that point, I'm I'm ready to I'm ready to turn into discipline, Daddy. Um I don't often, I or sorry, I often expect immediate obedience from my kids, and if I don't get it, I'm ready to get mean and change my tone and try to do everything I can to manipulate them, to dish out threats and consequences. But our God is so patient. He's so patient and kind. God deserves immediate obedience. As soon as we hear his word, we ought to obey. He deserves immediate obedience. And he would be just to discipline us for delayed obedience. He would be just, but he gives us so many opportunities to repent, so many more than we deserve. And if God is so patient and so persistent with us, should we not be patient with one another and love one another with the love with which he has loved us? In Matthew 18, Jesus lays out a process for how to deal with people who have offended us. Do you remember that passage? Or who have sinned against us? And that process is fairly lengthy. I mean, you could read it and I guess you could imagine it in such a way that you could complete the process in like, I don't know, 30 minutes. But it's supposed to be a lengthy process in Matthew 18. And it gives the offender many opportunities to repent before we finally regard them as an unbeliever, before it is finally clear that they will never repent. So we must appreciate that God gives us many opportunities to repent, and we must thank him and be impressed with his patience with us. And we should also take those opportunities. We shouldn't just admire God's patience, but we should take him up on the opportunity that he gives us even this morning. Here we are. Here we are living and breathing. Many of us continuing in known sins. But here we have an opportunity to repent. God has not visited us with discipline, and we should take this opportunity to turn from our sins. And we should give others many opportunities to repent, as Jesus teaches us to do. So that is the King's grace persistently offered.

When Ignoring God Feels Reasonable

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What a marvelous God we have. And then point two, the king's grace surprisingly refused. One of the greatest ways to rebel against God is simply to ignore him, simply to not give him the attention that he deserves. A king is throwing a wedding feast for his son, and in the ancient world it was common for two invitations to be issued for an event like this. Similar to how we might do a save the date, and then later we would send an actual wedding invitation. In Jesus' day, an invitation would be issued, and then the people would respond and they would commit to being present, they would commit to attending that feast, and then preparations would be made. But time kind of worked differently back then because it wasn't so clear how long the preparations might take or when everything might be ready. So it could be at any time. So I'm saying, hey, I'm gonna throw this feast, you're gonna come, okay, I'm gonna let you know when we're ready, and then you're gonna come to the feast. That's how it worked. They just had a a looser sense of time. But once it's all ready, a second invitation would be sent out to those who committed to attend, letting them know that everything is now ready and it's time for the party, and that's what we see here. In verse 3, it says the king sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Now I hope you see now how offensive it is that they would refuse to come at this point. The subjects who refuse to attend have already been invited, and they have already said that they're going to be there. They've already committed. For them to now refuse to attend would be harmful, and it would be offensive and expensive. Just imagine planning this expensive wedding or this expensive party, accounting for all the people who said that they would be there, only for none of them to show up. You would never talk to them again. Right? That would be the height of offense. Why do they refuse? Verse 5, it says, They paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business. Luke's version of this parable elaborates further. Luke says, But they all alike began to make excuses. Excuses. The first said to him, I have bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. I know I said that I would come, but please, please have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them. Please have me excused. They're all giving these excuses. The guests make excuses, and their excuses are not really urgent matters. I've bought a field, and I must go examine my field, because it's not going to be there tomorrow. It might not be there tomorrow, right? They're important things, but they're things that could be done at any time. It's really no excuse to miss this once-in-a-lifetime feast. The real issue is not that they're busy. The real issue is that they have no love for the king. They have no concern for the king. They have no regard for his son. They have no desire to honor the king. Their quiet act of ignoring the king, their busyness, which crowds out the king, is actually a form of rebellion against the king. The lesson here is that rebellion against God can look very excusable. It can look very excusable. We all have many concerns in life that we need to deal with. We must all be concerned about our daily bread and our provision and our businesses and our careers. We must be concerned about our work and our chores. All of those things are important, but nothing is more important than our commitment to the king and to honor the king's son. Have you seen what has happened to former Senator Ben Sass? This year he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer out of nowhere. And he was given three to four months to live. He's 54 years old. But learning that he's dying has had a really profound impact on his life. And I would encourage you to go listen to some of the recent interviews that have been done with him. It has really clarified for him the purpose of his life. And he's written a lot and he's done a lot of interviews and he talks about the importance of spending time with family, the importance of his faith and Jesus Christ. These things have become so much more important for him now that he knows that his days are numbered. And people are listening to him because he's in a unique position as a dying man. He has a unique perspective. He shares a perspective that we all need. In an interview with CBS, he recently said, having a terminal diagnosis isn't really that unique. We are all always on the clock. Some of us have the benefit of knowing our time is finite and defined, and it becomes an opportunity to talk about more important things. Sass's days are numbered. And so he now understands the difference between what is truly urgent and what is merely important, but not so urgent. Ben Sass is not making excuses anymore. His days are numbered. But he's exactly right in what he says. And the secret that he now realizes that none of us understand. The secret is that all of our days are numbered. The secret is that all of us are dying. We all have a limited amount of time. We just don't realize it. We must all reckon with what is truly urgent. Jesus teaches in this parable that the truly urgent matter is that we would find ourselves at this banquet. That we would be there. We're invited, and it is so important that we respond to that invitation. There is simply no excuse not to be there. That we would accept the invitation of the King and that we would rejoice in the wedding supper of the Son is the most urgent and pressing matter that you will deal with today and every day. What is more urgent and important than sitting at the feet of Jesus and receiving the words of life that pour from him? So don't make excuses. I'm going on vacation. You can miss church occasionally. I'm going to miss church for the next two weeks. But be vigilant about rooting out anything that gets in the way of your ordinary worship and your ordinary church attendance. You can miss prayer and Bible reading occasionally, and the Lord will still be there waiting for you. But don't let anything get in the way of regular time with the Lord. Nothing is more urgent in your life than that you would accept this invitation and rejoice in the Son today if you hear his voice. Do not harden your hearts.

The Wedding Garment And True Faith

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So what would that look like to receive that invitation? I'm glad you asked. Point three. Invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. Now there's a bigger idea here that's going on that we've not yet talked about. This parable occurs in the context of Jesus talking about how the nation of Israel will reject him, and how the temple and the nation will be destroyed. He talks about that in over many chapters in the latter half of Matthew. Israel has been unfruitful, and so the kingdom will be given to those who will bear fruit. In verses 8 through 10, the kingdom departs from the nation of Israel and goes out to all of the nations. As John tells us in his gospel, John 1, 11 and 12, it says, He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. So verses 8 through 10 describes what is happening during the time of Jesus' ascension and his return. The gospel will go out to all of the nations, to the highways and to the hedges, to any who will respond. The call will go far and wide, and many from all around the world will be brought into the feast, both good and bad. Now what does he mean when he says both good and bad? Well, it looks like there are some wedding crashers. Take a look at verses eleven through thirteen. It says, When the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment, and he said to him, Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So the man without a wedding without a wedding garment has just come for the free food. He's not there, or he's just there for the party. He has not readied himself. He has not put on his clean garments. He is not there to honor the sun. He's just there, he's a freeloader. He's there to enjoy the feast. The king comes to examine his guests, and only those who are wearing the wedding garments are allowed to stay. The hangers on are cast into outer darkness. And the last part is a symbol of final judgment. But what does it mean? Jesus' conclusion is found in verse 14. This is the point of the whole parable. He says, For many are called, but few are chosen. The gospel call is to go out to all nations and to every creature under heaven. At the end of Mark's gospel, Jesus says in Mark 16, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. When I go to Canada, I'm going to preach the gospel to the trees and the and the and the stones. It says to the whole creation. The gospel invitation goes out to all. And many respond, but not all respond for the right reason. Some respond just to enjoy the benefits of the feast. Free food, free drink, I'll be there. While others respond in order to rejoice in the sun. The wedding garment is a symbol of what Jesus says in Mark 16: repentance and faith. Those who believe and are baptized will be saved. Many will join themselves to God's people because there are many benefits of joining yourself to God's people, but only those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus will be saved. Forty percent of students who enroll in a college program never finish it. They do the hard work of applying, they're accepted, they show up and they move into the dorms, but four out of ten of them will never finish their college degree. And there's many reasons that this might be so, but surely there are many students who have no idea what they're getting into. They have not readied themselves for their studies. They just watched Animal House one time, and then they're like, oh yeah, that's for me. I'll go to college. They don't take college seriously, they're there for a good time, but they're not really cut out to be students, so they end up being becoming carpenters like me. And so they drop out. Many enroll, but few graduate. And so it is with God's kingdom. The invitation goes out to all, to many. We want to invite many. We want all to be saved. The invitation goes out to all, and many do respond. But what really matters is that we receive the invitation rightly with repentance and faith. So we must do what Paul says and examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith. We must examine ourselves. There's many benefits of being part of the church, especially large churches with lots of resources. I know that all of us here have true repentance and faith because this is not a large church with lots of resources, so you must be here because you love Jesus. So welcome. But there's especially in large churches, there's many benefits of being part of that community. In the church, we find friendship, we find business networking. If you're a realtor, you better go to a large church. We find financial assistance for those who need it. We find counseling, we find job opportunities. There are so many benefits of being part of a church. If you're an under-resourced person and you're not part of a church, you're just a dummy. Go be part of a church and then become a Christian. This is as it should be. There should be many resources in the church. That's a good thing. I'm glad for that. But we must be careful to ensure that we're not just here for the food. We must be careful to ensure that we have readied ourselves for the king, that we have put on Christ, that we have put on the garments of repentance and faith that have been provided for us. This doesn't mean that we need to clean ourselves up because we cannot. We cannot do so. We must be washed by Jesus. It means we must be clothed in the garments that the King has provided. Paul writes in Romans 13 14. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. Let's

Prayer And Final Charge To Respond

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pray. That you have prepared an incredible feast for us. It's not really for us, it's for your son. But we're invited. And we get to celebrate in the glory and the joy of the marriage supper of the Lamb. And we get to begin to do that now, and we get to do that forever. It's a never-ending feast, your kingdom. And we get to be a part of it. It's a gracious invitation. You give us many opportunities to respond to it, and we thank you for that. We pray, God, that you would help us to respond rightly this morning. And not only to repent and believe, but to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Help us, God, in Jesus' name. Amen. Let us stand and give glory to God.