SPEAKER_00: My name is Pastor Justin.
SPEAKER_00: It's my joy and privilege to be able to bring God's word to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: As we talked about, we are in a sermon series called We.
SPEAKER_00: It's our vision series for 2023 to kick off the new year.
SPEAKER_00: And we're trying to refocus on what God has called us to as a church body.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked a lot about how we are people of compassion, right?
SPEAKER_00: We are people who are rooted and grounded in compassion for those around us.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're talking about we exist for those who are not here yet.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite people of the faith is a man by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you guys know who he is, but uh my son's middle name is Dietrich.
SPEAKER_00: I really uh love and admire the story of his faith and life.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian in the World War II time.
SPEAKER_00: And he was in Germany and actually landed himself in a concentration camp because he was on a group of people who were trying to plot a way to assassinate Hitler.
SPEAKER_00: He was discovered, found out, put into a concentration camp.
SPEAKER_00: And uh you would imagine that in those times, in times of war, in times of strife, our propensity would be to really focus inward, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're constantly in a survival mode.
SPEAKER_00: You're in a fight or flight mode.
SPEAKER_00: And so in those situations, we tend to look inward.
SPEAKER_00: However, Dietrich, as he was in those concentration camps, he started writing a lot.
SPEAKER_00: He started some underground churches and seminary efforts to train the church to be the shining light of Christ, even in the midst of war-torn Germany and Europe.
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote in one of his letters, in a collection of letters he calls Letters and Papers from Prison, he wrote this phrase about the church.
SPEAKER_00: It says, The church is the church only when it exists for others, not dominating, but helping and serving.
SPEAKER_00: It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ to exist for others.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that in any circumstance the church was only actually gonna be able to do what it was called to do by Christ, its master, if they were others focused, if they existed for those not here yet.
SPEAKER_00: And as we look at this parable in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is gonna help us understand his heart for others and how we play a role in that to see his will for his kingdom uh be established and accomplished in earth.
SPEAKER_00: So as we come into this story in chapter uh 14, we look at the very beginning of this teaching in 12 through 14, and we see that there's this summary.
SPEAKER_00: We can either prosper in the moment or in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: If you're following along in our app through the sermon notes, you can fill in those highlighted words.
SPEAKER_00: Use this for personal devotion time later as you're studying God's word.
SPEAKER_00: But here's where we're gonna set the scene, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're coming into the middle of something.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has been invited by a ruler of the Pharisees to come over for a feast, for a dinner party on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: And he shows up, and in true Jesus fashion, the first thing that he does is he heals somebody with dropsy.
SPEAKER_00: He heals a man that's present at the dinner party who has dropsy.
SPEAKER_00: Now, dropsy, as many of you would imagine, is uh not something where you drop things a lot, right?
SPEAKER_00: You what does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what's this condition?
SPEAKER_00: It's actually an excess of fluid in the body that causes parts of your body to swell up.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus shows up to the dinner party, he sees this person as kind of an evident physical ailment, right?
SPEAKER_00: He heals them.
SPEAKER_00: Just imagine, like, his forearm completely shrink or his foot shrink back to normal size.
SPEAKER_00: People witness what?
SPEAKER_00: People witness the breaking into the kingdom, they they witness the lordship of Christ, and they witness this all on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is really turning over this kind of predetermined reality of what they thought the Sabbath was for, the man-made traditions and laws that they inserted into this holy day.
SPEAKER_00: And he shows that, like, as he said previously in one of his teaching, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: And how does he demonstrate that this Sabbath was made for man?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he heals somebody on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: So he shows this rest of God bringing restoration to an individual.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of God bringing restoration to an individual.
SPEAKER_00: Then he tells a parable about a wedding feast.
SPEAKER_00: So he heals this dude, then he tells a parable about a wedding feast.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why he started telling this parable is that as he looked around the table, he saw all the people who had been invited were contending for the seat of honor.
SPEAKER_00: They were contending to sit next to the dinner host.
SPEAKER_00: You see, back in those days, when you threw a dinner party, whoever sat closest to the host was the most honorable guest present at the dinner party.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus, as he's coming in, sees them all kind of fight for that place of honor, contend to sit there.
SPEAKER_00: And so he tells this parable of the wedding feast, and the premise of the parable, of what he's trying to communicate to those who are present, is this.
SPEAKER_00: He says it in Luke 14, 11, just one verse earlier.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus continues his teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And we pick up in verse 12 this morning as he talks about this great banquet.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus at this point, he directs his attention to the host of the party.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we already said he was a leader, a ruler of the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is he was a part of an elite group of society called the Sanhedrin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Jewish people lived under Roman rule.
SPEAKER_00: However, they allowed Jewish people to live according to their laws and customs.
SPEAKER_00: And so there was still a governing body that was not Roman, but was Jewish that actually executed justice and judgment over the people to ensure that they were living according to the ways of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Sanhedrin facilitated that.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, seek to open your table to the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and showing them hospitality, you will be blessed because they have no means to repay you.
SPEAKER_00: They come to the table empty-handed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus is warning the host to not seek his reward in these temporal benefits that he would experience in this life by the people that he held company with, that the people that he invited to his home to share a meal with.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, seek to have your reward postponed through the eternal blessing of hosting those who come empty-handed.
SPEAKER_00: As I said earlier, the Jewish people were built in a high class culture.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees, the lawyers, the Sanhedrin, they, the religious leaders, held the upper class of Jewish society.
SPEAKER_00: And then you talk about people like the poor, the lame, the blind, the crippled.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even that they were the lowest tier of Jewish culture, is that they were utterly despised by Jewish culture.
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, they would be considered unclean or not able to be a part of culture at all.
SPEAKER_00: And so for Jesus to say, when you host a dinner party, don't, don't, don't, don't uh invite these honorable guests, these ones who hold the highest class in your society, but invite even those whom you despise to the table.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be unthinkable and vile to demonstrate such hospitality, those who didn't belong at the table that they feasted from.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is working to get them to see a bigger picture of the kingdom of God that he's inaugurating right in their midst.
SPEAKER_00: Remember?
SPEAKER_00: And through the healing, on the day of rest, he brings restoration.
SPEAKER_00: He's ushering in the kingdom right before their eyes, and he's trying to help them understand kingdom culture.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the true host of heaven's feast, invites the beggars and classless of this world to recline at table with him.
SPEAKER_00: Let the needy and empty-handed come because Jesus invites them.
SPEAKER_00: Let the poor come because the 2 Corinthians 8 says that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
SPEAKER_00: Let the crippled come.
SPEAKER_00: For Luke 5 31 says that those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
SPEAKER_00: Let the lame come who plead to him.
SPEAKER_00: Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, 133.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, let the blind come who pray, light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 133.
SPEAKER_00: I think what we see in this teaching of this feast is that there's two paths that we can travel.
SPEAKER_00: We can travel the way of this world, and in so choosing to do that, we are acquiring for ourselves temporary but immediate benefits.
SPEAKER_00: Temporary but immediate benefits.
SPEAKER_00: So whoever you kind of partner with in this world, whoever you invite to sit at your table, if they are people that the world holds in high honor, then you're gonna be immediately benefited because they're able to repay you for the kindness and hospitality you showed to them.
SPEAKER_00: But those are temporal benefits.
SPEAKER_00: And as you die, you will not be carried into the next life with all that you acquired from this world.
SPEAKER_00: It will die with you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way of this world.
SPEAKER_00: But the path of the kingdom says this that traveling will be a cost to you.
SPEAKER_00: And it will cost you now.
SPEAKER_00: But we await a reward deferred.
SPEAKER_00: What we acquire for the kingdom will be our reward for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is actually presenting a question for the heart of man to wrestle with Prosper in the moment or in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: As we look through verses 15 through 20, as Jesus continues this story, we see empty excuses make empty souls.
SPEAKER_00: Empty excuses make empty souls.
SPEAKER_00: After Jesus pauses a moment from teaching, a man exclaims, Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: I have to imagine kind of the scene at what's happening here, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes in and Jesus is disruptive by a lot of means, right?
SPEAKER_00: He comes in, he heals a man, he sees everybody how they're fighting for the seat of honor.
SPEAKER_00: He tells a story, telling them that, you know, they're all uh prideful and they're trying to exalt themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And then he looks at the dinner host and basically says, everybody who's sitting around this table, you should never have had invited to come and feast with you.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, you should have invited these people the poor, the lame, the blind, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then I can just imagine that after he's done teaching this, there's probably like just thick, awkward silence.
SPEAKER_00: And this man kind of breaks it with this outburst.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is everyone who eats the bread in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like an attempt to break that silence.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus had just told the host that everyone who was there should not be.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is now going to take an opportunity to correct this haphazard outburst with another parable that really targets the people that's eating with them.
SPEAKER_00: And he picks up in verse 16, but he said to him, so he directs his attention to this man, a man once gave a banquet and invited many.
SPEAKER_00: A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.
SPEAKER_00: Let's build some context of around what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: Back in those days, uh before we had Evites and different things like that, you would actually send out your servants, or you would send out the people of your household to invite those who you desired to be at your banquet or at your dinner feast.
SPEAKER_00: And the purpose was to kind of make them aware that you would desire them to come and be at this banquet, and so that they could RSVP so that you as the host could prepare properly for all the guests who would come.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't want a situation where uh the people came and you didn't have enough food or enough wine or something of that nature, right?
SPEAKER_00: So it was a way to help them understand that they were desired, they were desired to be at this dinner party, and so that you could prepare properly.
SPEAKER_00: So what Jesus is saying is that there was this group of people who had already been invited and were left to realize in the context of the parable that they RSVP'd yes, that they were gonna come.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is communicating that there has already been an initial invitation to this great banquet that he's telling about.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 17, he says, And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servants to say to those who had been invited, come, for everything is now ready.
SPEAKER_00: Now the banquet was ready, everything had been prepared, and all that was missing were the guests that had been invited.
SPEAKER_00: So the host sends out his servants to call them to come.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 18 it says, But they all began to make excuses.
SPEAKER_00: So each one had already been invited, each one had already RSVP'd.
SPEAKER_00: What was the servant going out to do?
SPEAKER_00: He was simply calling those who had already said that they would come, that the time is now, the dinner is ready.
SPEAKER_00: And each one started to make an excuse.
SPEAKER_00: You see, these excuses weren't even good ones.
SPEAKER_00: They were empty ones.
SPEAKER_00: There were ones that really didn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: And you've probably been in this situation before, I bet, where you were invited to something and you didn't really want to go.
SPEAKER_00: And so the first thing that you thought of as an excuse kind of came out, and you're like, man, that was horrible.
SPEAKER_00: That was a bad excuse, right?
SPEAKER_00: But you were trying to what?
SPEAKER_00: You were trying to divert off of this guilt that you felt in some nature, right?
SPEAKER_00: You felt guilty for not attending, and so you kind of make this haphazard excuse of why you can't come.
SPEAKER_00: We can almost get a sense that this is what's happening here in the story.
SPEAKER_00: It's said that in these moments uh of guilt, the heart is able to give a forceful blow.
SPEAKER_00: And to parry it, men hold up a shield of excuses.
SPEAKER_00: That's what these guests who had been invited are doing.
SPEAKER_00: You see, two of these guests make excuses about large purchases they made that they now have to go and observe.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is very uncommon to the times that Jesus lived in.
SPEAKER_00: They're not like us, right?
SPEAKER_00: And in our current culture, we make$30,000 above asking price offers on homes we've never even walked in yet, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because uh maybe we're not as good as our with our money as they were, or we have these fallbacks of inspections that we can always back out if we really don't want what we made this huge outlandish offer on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh back in those days, they they didn't have that.
SPEAKER_00: So what they did was they were gonna be sure that before they made such a large investment, and we're talking about two huge investments here: a plot of land and five pairs of oxen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, if they were gonna make an investment of that nature, they would want to make sure before they purchased it that the land was able to be tilled, that it was able to be farmed, that it was able to host this generational living space that they were gonna build upon there, or that these oxen were able to plow, that they didn't have some type of defect or birth disorder, that they weren't too weak to be able to carry out the task.
SPEAKER_00: And so the thought that these men would have to now go and actually observe these things after they had already purchased them would be such an empty, deceitful excuse.
SPEAKER_00: And then the third one talks about he was just got married and that he can't come because he's now has this wife.
SPEAKER_00: And you have to imagine that this seems like an empty excuse also.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who have been married and you were married young, right, when you first got married, you knew that you shouldn't have a ton of money.
SPEAKER_00: So if somebody was going to throw a party where there's free food and free drink and music and dancing, like you're gonna take your wife to that.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like an amazing time.
SPEAKER_00: And we also realize that the servant who was calling them to come to the banquet doesn't look at them be like, oh, you're married?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't have enough room for your spouse, so it's probably better that you guys don't come.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see that anywhere in the story.
SPEAKER_00: We see yet another really pathetic empty excuse.
SPEAKER_00: Those who had been invited reject the final call to come when the time had arrived.
SPEAKER_00: They gave empty excuses for their absence, and because of this, as we will see in the final part of the parable, they would be a people of empty souls.
SPEAKER_00: In verses twenty-one through twenty-four, we see this that there is room at the table.
SPEAKER_00: There is room at the table.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21 starts this way So the servant came and reported these things to his master.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus communicates a response that the master of the story has to the empty excuses of those whom he had invited.
SPEAKER_00: It says, The master became angry.
SPEAKER_00: Anger is actually a common theme in the life of Jesus and in the parables that he tells.
SPEAKER_00: You can read several parables where Jesus talks about the resolve or response of those who the characters who represented himself or the father resolved in an anger.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and even in Jesus' ministry himself, he often felt anger in the ways that people responding to the teachings of uh of his ministry or the healing miracles that he would actually uh uh do in people's lives.
SPEAKER_00: It was a response of anger.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus is helping us understand of some nature is that he shows that righteous anger is a holy response to unrighteous behavior.
SPEAKER_00: Righteous anger is a holy response to unrighteous behavior.
SPEAKER_00: The difference comes between Jesus and us is Jesus' ability to always respond in holy ways and the propensity that we have to respond in sinful ways.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is showing that the response to this rejection of his invitation ignites anger in the heart of the master.
SPEAKER_00: And here's how he responds He says, Go out quickly.
SPEAKER_00: So this is because he's angry, he tells his servant, go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.
SPEAKER_00: Does that guess list sound familiar to you?
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus was telling the first parable of the wedding feast, of who should you invite?
SPEAKER_00: He's already saying, These are the people that should be invited.
SPEAKER_00: Go and bring.
SPEAKER_00: These are both imperative commands in the Jesus that sort of in the story that Jesus is telling.
SPEAKER_00: He's not commanding his servants to go throughout the city with the hopes of others coming.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Go and bring, carry to the table those who cannot bring themselves.
SPEAKER_00: As he looks at the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, those who cannot bring themselves, go and bring them.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22, and the servant said, Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.
SPEAKER_00: That is this kind of anthem that we want to put forward this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Still there is room.
SPEAKER_00: The servant had obeyed the master.
SPEAKER_00: He had gone out and he had brought the lame, the crippled, the poor, and the blind, and they seated them at the master's table, and their response is like, We did everything that you asked, and still there is room.
SPEAKER_00: I think this communicates two things for us at least this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is the servant's eager, the servant's eagerness to fill his master's table.
SPEAKER_00: The servant was eager to fill his master's table.
SPEAKER_00: He had gone out and done everything that was commanded to him, and as he comes back, he reports, he gives an account.
SPEAKER_00: We did everything you commanded, and still there is room.
SPEAKER_00: But the second thing I think it communicates to us is the vast state of the table to be filled.
SPEAKER_00: How big was that table?
SPEAKER_00: That they went out to the city, to the lanes of the city around them, and brought in those who could not bring themselves, and yet there was still room at the table.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23 says, And the master said to the servant, Go to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, through this parable, communicates the heart, his heart that his house would be filled.
SPEAKER_00: The servant is then commanded to go once again, but this time to the outer areas of the city and compel them to come in.
SPEAKER_00: This language of compel actually reflects a sense of forcible restraint, to bring them in, as if to communicate there's no other option but to come and feast at this table.
SPEAKER_00: And in 24, Jesus is going to bring home what these dinner guests needed to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Those who were in his company, what they needed to hear come out of his mouth, he says in verse 24, For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.
SPEAKER_00: This is the condemning message of Christ to those who are within, listening of his teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that haphazard outburst?
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is showing them that many sitting at the table with him will never taste that bread.
SPEAKER_00: Many who were sitting there had been the ones who RSVP'd to the first invitation, but rejected the final one with empty excuses.
SPEAKER_00: They received the invitation to the promises of the old covenant, so they committed to come.
SPEAKER_00: But when the servant called them to come to the great banquet, they refused to feast upon what was offered.
SPEAKER_00: So through this parable, we learn that there is room at the table of Jesus' feast because they, being Israel, had refused to feast upon the bread and wine that was being offered.
SPEAKER_00: So we're shown at the end of this, there's still room at the table.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want us to understand for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at ourselves in relation to this parable teaching of Jesus, I want us to see that we are servants sent out to call others to come and feast.
SPEAKER_00: We are servants sent out to call others to come and feast.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has prepared a feast for his people.
SPEAKER_00: The table is set with the bread and wine of his son, and there is room at the table.
SPEAKER_00: In the presence of empty chairs, we should go with urgency to compel those around us to come and sit.
SPEAKER_00: Go out quickly for people are suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Go out quickly for families are falling to ruin.
SPEAKER_00: Go out quickly because children are being caused to stumble.
SPEAKER_00: Go out quickly because men are dying.
SPEAKER_00: Go out quickly because the banquet is ready.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's table is not full.
SPEAKER_00: There is room.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, the Master, has communicated his desire to us that my house may be filled.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we've been called to go and bring.
SPEAKER_00: We've been called to go and compel.
SPEAKER_00: We've been called to go and make.
SPEAKER_00: Because blessed is everyone who eats bread in the house of God.
SPEAKER_00: This haphazard outburst wasn't wrong.
SPEAKER_00: He just didn't understand that he wasn't going to be able to taste the bread himself because he rejected the invitation to come and feast upon the true bread and wine of God the Father, and that's the flesh and blood of his very Son.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is everyone who eats his flesh and drinks his blood.
SPEAKER_00: You see, as these servants who are called to go and compel them to come and feast, we must be obedient and faithful stewards of the master we serve.
SPEAKER_00: So not only has Jesus commanded us to go and tell, but Jesus is going to hold us accountable to give an account for what we did with that invitation.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we are the heralds of the good news gospel, proclaiming the invitation to the great banquet of Jesus the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And he has laid upon us, his servants, the responsibility to make sure not only that the world has been invited, but that his house may be filled, every seat occupied.
SPEAKER_00: But many of us, if we're honest with ourselves, we are unmoved by empty seats.
SPEAKER_00: We are unmoved by empty seats.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us look around and see these empty chairs without an emotional response whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we have no real sense of the urgency of time, right?
SPEAKER_00: The fleeting time of life.
SPEAKER_00: I hear a lot in our language.
SPEAKER_00: I hear in my own language how time just keeps going by faster and faster.
SPEAKER_00: And for many of us who are in Christ, there's a sense of joy in that, right?
SPEAKER_00: It won't be long before we're in the presence of our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: It won't be long before we're in glory and the fullness of his promises are given to us, and we inherit all that has been acquired for us in his perfect obedience and his death, burial, and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: All that is promised will be ours soon.
SPEAKER_00: But what about those who are not in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Time is passing them by just as fast as it is you and I.
SPEAKER_00: What about the expectant time of the return of our Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Do we long for his return?
SPEAKER_00: Do we eagerly anticipate his return for us, his church?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we have no real sense of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we fail to comprehend the weightiness of what's at stake.
SPEAKER_00: That after this life is forever.
SPEAKER_00: Either forever in the blessed presence and communion of God our Father, or it is forever under the conscious, eternal torment of his wrath and justice.
SPEAKER_00: But after this is forever.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we have no real sense of heaven or hell.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if we're honest with ourselves, we really don't believe hell is real at all, or that heaven isn't all that it's going to be promised to us.
SPEAKER_00: One artist said it's very easy to love you, but it's very difficult to trust you.
SPEAKER_00: Do we struggle with trusting God?
SPEAKER_00: That his promises are yes and amen.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we have no real sense of the mission of God and his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: We would rather have a church that was more focused on me, comfortable for me, small and intimate for me.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're honest with ourselves, if we have that disposition and posture, we don't share the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: I think he gives us a really beautiful portrait of his heart, his desire for what will come of his plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: As the apostle John was taken up on the Lord's day in the Spirit, he was shown this image of uh of the spirit realm.
SPEAKER_00: And in Revelation chapter 7, he he communicates this.
SPEAKER_00: He saw this.
SPEAKER_00: After this, I looked.
SPEAKER_00: That's John the Apostle saying, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation belongs to God and to the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: This is his plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: This is his purpose in restoring all things that are broken.
SPEAKER_00: This is his purchasing of a people for his own possession.
SPEAKER_00: And what does that look like?
SPEAKER_00: It's a multitude so vast that no man has the ability to number it.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how big that vision is?
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how big that work of redemption is?
SPEAKER_00: So many of us, we get so uh uh uh like caught in the limitations of our own inability to see the way that God sees things.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think that we can outthink God, out-imagine him, outvision him for all that he desires to do in his purpose and work of restoration and redemption?
SPEAKER_00: You you think that if if we had a million people sitting in these seats, that that would even come close to what God desires to do, who told Abraham that the people that I bring unto myself will be like the stars in the sky or the grain of sands on the shores of the beach that man cannot number if he tried.
SPEAKER_00: God has a bigger picture of restoration and redemption than we do.
SPEAKER_00: God has a bigger table than we do.
SPEAKER_00: You're here because someone invited you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they didn't invite you to a sacred mission.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you stumbled here through a Google ad or something.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what happened: someone was sent as a servant to invite you to come and feast at Jesus' table.
SPEAKER_00: They invited you to the banquet.
SPEAKER_00: It was a person who was moved with a sense of urgency by the sight of an empty seat.
SPEAKER_00: An urgency that caused them to compel you to sit so that your soul might be filled.
SPEAKER_00: I think that we should be moved and compelled with the same sense of urgency.
SPEAKER_00: What beauty it is that we sit here at Jesus' table because a servant came and invited us in.
SPEAKER_00: We should be compelled then to invite many others to come and feast with us.
SPEAKER_00: Our confidence, though, is not in our ultimate sense of urgency or how beautiful and compelling our invitation is.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that not one drop of the blood of Christ will go to such waste that it will not be applied to purchase and ransom those of whom will sit at his table.
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice of Jesus was a means of setting the table for the banquet, to offer up himself as the food for the Father's children, and his cry from upon the cross of it is finished, was the call that the banquet was ready.
SPEAKER_00: He will surely not one setting of his banquet go without someone's soul becoming full and satisfied from it.
SPEAKER_00: And it is no small table that he has set.
SPEAKER_00: It is one that stretches beyond the ability of man to even see its end.
SPEAKER_00: And Christ will not be satisfied until the countless in number fill his house.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the sacrifice of Jesus not only provided the means, but it also ensured the end.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're sent as messengers with the confidence and assurance that many will respond by faith to the invitation we extend, because he will see to it that his house is full.
SPEAKER_00: There's a hymn that we sing very frequently here at Sacred Mission Church called There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the stanzas has these words in it Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power.
SPEAKER_00: Till when?
SPEAKER_00: Till all, the ransom church of God, be saved to sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: We sing about Christ's insurance of his table being filled, every setting place, having a person that occupies it.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what's our hope in all of this?
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is that we would be a people who exist for those not here yet.
SPEAKER_00: That we would exist for those not here yet.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what a peculiar morning that we have more empty seats than we've ever had in, I think, our existence.
SPEAKER_00: But are we moved by these empty seats?
SPEAKER_00: Are we moved by what they represent and reflect?
SPEAKER_00: I really don't care about how big we get as a church, as if it's some effort to uh build a kingdom for my own glory or for the glory of the elders or whatever else.
SPEAKER_00: It's really me trying to force myself to have a vision like God has.
SPEAKER_00: It's really an effort to try and share the heart of my master and the way that he's communicated it.
SPEAKER_00: That his table is so large that the guest list cannot be counted, that that he will fill his house as he desires, that every seat unoccupied means that someone will not taste of the bread of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That is the heart that I want all of us to share.
SPEAKER_00: And no, we and God has blessed us in tremendous ways.
SPEAKER_00: We are three years old.
SPEAKER_00: I think a couple weeks ago I said four years old.
SPEAKER_00: I counted our launch Sunday as like a year.
SPEAKER_00: You don't do that with babies, you probably shouldn't do that with a church.
SPEAKER_00: So, in all honesty, we're three years old.
SPEAKER_00: And the last couple of Sundays, we've averaged over 325 people.
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing what God is doing here at Sacred Mission.
SPEAKER_00: We've baptized people, we've dedicated children, we've seen people come to faith, we've planted mission groups, we've done all these amazing things in just three years, all of us working and laboring in the kingdom together.
SPEAKER_00: But man, we're nowhere close to done.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not ready to be content.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not ready to just sit idly by and say, hey, we arrived.
SPEAKER_00: This city has thousands of people who aren't seated at the table.
SPEAKER_00: Thousands of people who are waiting for us to extend the invitation.
SPEAKER_00: As Tyler said as he was introducing our new mission group leaders, the problem isn't the harvest, the problem is the workers going out to pluck from its vine that which the Lord has prepared.
SPEAKER_00: To see thousands come to know the saving power of Christ in the same way that you have.
SPEAKER_00: This city doesn't have enough churches.
SPEAKER_00: We need more and more churches, gospel-centered, healthy, biblically rooted churches in this city to continue to reach more people.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what do we hope to do?
SPEAKER_00: We hope to live as missionaries who do what?
SPEAKER_00: Who are servants of the Lord, who go out and extend the invitation to those who have not yet heard.
SPEAKER_00: Call them, bring them, compel them to sit at the table with us, to taste of the bread and wine of our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then through that, we're gonna raise up leaders, develop them, disciple them in the way the Great Commission calls us to, in hopes that we plant church after church after church to see God's kingdom to continue to advance.
SPEAKER_00: Man, we've just gotten started, church, and I'm excited for what's happening in 2023, but I'm more excited what happens over the next 10, 25, 50 years as we put down roots and we send out those to proclaim the faithful and powerful gospel of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked a lot as an elder team about this space.
SPEAKER_00: And we're so thankful for this space, but it's so challenging to be in this space, and we're thinking of ways that we can create more room.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we can just grow bigger, but that we can get critical mass to send out and plant people so that we can stay healthy and then plant more, right?
SPEAKER_00: What you want to do is you want to create a healthy vine that you can create more plants off of.
SPEAKER_00: If you make this main plant or vine unhealthy and you're trying to plant other stuff off of it, you're just gonna kill this.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be as healthy as we possibly can so that when we keep sending out other people to plant churches, to be missionaries, to reach the unreached, we can stay healthy as a church so we can do even more for the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So we're trying to discover room of what we can do because here's what I believe.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that as crazy as I am, as much as my mind can drift off into my imagination, I believe God can and wants to do greater than that.
SPEAKER_00: Does your vision meet, match?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it can't, so it's kind of a false question, but but are you striving to have your vision for what God wants to do line up with His?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, man, think about the majesty and splendor and glory of the God that we serve.
SPEAKER_00: Let's think about it, let's ponder it more by this passage from Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit comes upon the prophet Isaiah and he shows him this vision, and it's for us.
SPEAKER_00: This is the work of God.
SPEAKER_00: On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine, well refined, and he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.
SPEAKER_00: He will swallow up death forever.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.
SPEAKER_00: That is a huge vision for what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: That death itself would be swallowed up, that the reproach of every person from every nation that is in Christ would be removed from them, that they would feast at his table.
SPEAKER_00: Church, there is room at the table.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that we have a sense of urgency to call, to compel, to bring those in our city in to sit with us at God's table.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.