Everything is Ready, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. The gospel is not that Jesus rewards the righteous with great seats around his table. The gospel is that there was only one who ever lived who deserved the high place and he voluntarily took the low place for you. So when he died on the cross, he got into your place and he died for your sin and now offers you his high place at the table as a gift. And this parable about the low place, it's not just good social advice. It's the way of eternal life. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. You know, it's good news when Jesus tells us to come to the table. In fact, it's an invitation to you personally. Today, Pastor J.D. Greer looks at how Jesus extends that invitation to us and what keeps a lot of people from accepting it. Hopefully today we can learn some valuable lessons encouraging us to RSVP and join him in this most important way.

You can reach out to us at jdgreer.com or give us a call at 866-335-5220. We've got resources available to help direct you in your journey with Jesus, so give us a call today. But for now, let's join Pastor J.D.

Greer in Luke chapter 14 as he continues his message, Everything is Ready. Ask yourself, what if the things the Bible says about eternity are true? This Bible that we are looking at teaches you that all people everywhere, you, your children, all your friends, all of you are going to spend eternity in one of two places. One is a place called heaven that is a place of unimaginable bliss and pleasure, a place where a place that is the party of all parties, where everything that you have yearned for comes true. The other place is a place the Bible describes as hell. That's not a figment of our imagination.

It's not something that is an image for a really bad time on earth. Jesus describes hell as being a real place of real torment, a place that, by the way, Jesus was not a hateful preacher. He wasn't the kind of guy that got crazy and yelled at everybody all the time. He said these things because he loved us.

He said these things to warn us. I mean, you've got to ask yourself, what if what he said was true? What if it really was true that his death was what he said it was, that it was our substitute, him dying in our place for our sin so that we didn't have to? What if he was serious when he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Nobody comes to the Father but by me. What if Jesus was telling the truth on that? You can't just brush that aside and say, well, I don't really care about thinking about that.

If Jesus was true, then see, it demands the utmost urgency. Sometimes I'm afraid when I'm up here preaching that people feel like I'm a little too passionate. In fact, sometimes I get that feedback.

They're like, yeah, you scared me a little bit because you were yelling at everybody. I don't know how not to be passionate about this. I'm not in here like trying to get you to convince to join our church or give to our church or join our club or join our movement. I feel like I'm talking about eternal things. And I feel like that this might be the most important discussion you ever hear because if this is true, if there really is a heaven and a hell and Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way that somebody goes to heaven is through a relationship with him, then how could I not talk about it with urgency and with passion, right? I think I've told you this before, but I was sharing Christ one time with a girl and she was here in the community, but she moved down from New England. And she'd grown up in America, but she'd never heard the gospel. And after explaining the gospel to her, she said, she had a bunch of questions, a bunch of objections. She said, you actually believe this? And I said, well, yeah, I believe it. She said, because you don't act like you believe it. I said, what do you mean?

I'm sitting here telling you about it. She said, no, no, you act like you're trying to win a debate. She said, you're trying to win a debate with me. She said, if I believe what you say you believe, I don't know how I would get through the day. She said, I would call up every person I knew. I would talk to everybody that I could convince. I would just plead with them.

You have to listen to me. She said, I would just have this weight of sorrow that characterized my life. It would change what I did with my money.

It would change how I talk. She said, you act like you're trying to win a debate or win somebody to your team, but you're talking about things of eternity. And it seems like decent compassion would make you share with everybody all the time. Do you understand the urgency of this invitation? A lot of people don't. And that's why a lot of people miss it today, because they just feel like it's not that important. Here's the second reason Jesus said people miss the party. Some people miss the party, number two, because they feel unworthy. This story was scandalous because rich, important people wouldn't invite the poor, the lame, the blind, or the outcast into their homes for a social gathering. But that's who God invited. And a lot of people miss the party because they don't believe that God would actually want them there. Y'all listen, there is something instinctive in us that feels like we got to earn.

We got to be worthy of what we receive. You ever gone to one of those growing up, we called them potluck dinners at church. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, everybody bring all their food and you have a big place where it was all set out. And as long as you brought your green beans and chicken, then you could eat everybody else's green beans and chicken. It was a great day, right? So if you ever showed up at one of those things and like not known it was potluck week or whatever, and you forgot to bring something, how did you feel?

Do you feel like you shouldn't eat? Well, see, that was one of the biggest changes that marriage brought into my life. When I was a single guy, I went to a little small church in college and I was forever showing up at places where people have brought food and I hadn't brought any, right? And so I just learned to embrace grace and dive right in, right?

And then I got married and my wife, who was under the law, my wife wouldn't let me do that anymore. With her, if we didn't bring anything, we got to go home. We can't take part in the blessing if we haven't contributed, right? Now that's just good social manners. That's good social manners, but it's not true with God and his feast because there literally is nothing that we can bring.

You got to show up at that party empty handed and there's something instinctive in you that feels like that should not be. But see, anything you could offer would be worthless to God. Isaiah 64 says that all of our righteousness is like a filthy rag. The word that Isaiah used for filthy rag literally means a leper's rag.

When somebody had leprosy and their skin was filled with this disease, they would wrap them in these rags that would become quickly soaked through with blood and pus and disease. Imagine taking that rag and bringing it and laying it before God and says, this is my party gift. This is why I think I'm worthy to enter into your feast. By the way, the image there is really revealing because here you've got a rag that is now soaked through with all the corruption of disease and the corruption of things. You say, this is our righteousness. Yes, you may do righteous things sometimes, but soaking through that righteousness is your own depraved heart.

You have nothing that you can bring. Earlier this week, I was in Boston. I had to speak at something up there and I got a chance to take one of my daughters with me. And so we did the Freedom Trail. You go around and see all the places in the American Revolution, Paul Revere. It was like the Nicholas Cage National Treasure pilgrimage, I kind of felt like.

So it was awesome. And one of the places that we went into was this old church. And they said, hey, there's 10 crypts in this old, bottom of this old church. There's like 1,100 people buried in this thing.

So you take a tour of it. And all of them showed signs of being open and closed all the time because they said what they would do is after somebody bought it, they would just resell it to somebody else. And they would just keep throwing dead bodies in there until they were filled up. They said each one was open hundreds of times, except for this one.

And they pointed to this one. He said, this one has never been open since it was sealed because it was the one that they buried all the people who died of the smallpox epidemic in. And they just threw, not just them, they threw all their clothes and anything they touched, they just threw them into this thing and they sealed it up.

And nobody's ever gone in there because when you had that disease in those days, not only were you corrupted, but everything you've touched is corrupted. According to what Isaiah is saying, all of our righteousness is like a filthy rag. There is literally nothing that we can bring to this table.

So what do we do? Why would God want us and all of our corruption at his feast? How could he get us there? Well, see, that's the gospel. The gospel is that Jesus took our place. Paul says in second Corinthians that God made him who knew no sin, Jesus, to become sin for us.

He became disease and corruption and sin. He became that on the cross and died for it and put it away. The last words that Jesus said on the cross to tell us dies in Greek and the way we write that in English is it is finished.

It's a word they found scrawled on tax receipts after a debt had been paid. The debt has been paid for your sin. Jesus lifted up a loud voice and said, this is finished.

It's paid. And he died with it and put it away. Paul says God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. I was clothed with his righteousness. I was closed with his acceptance.

I was put in his house because of his worthiness, not my own. That means the invitation is open for all who will receive it regardless of the worthiness or unworthiness you bring to the table because it's not about your worthiness or unworthiness. Jesus died for all of it. It is about whether or not Jesus Christ has clothed you in his righteousness. If any man is in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away. All things have become new.

It doesn't matter how bad your old things are. They're all passed away in Christ. That invitation is for you. Four times Jesus gives an invitation in this passage. He keeps saying, come, let the poor and the broken come. Let the blind and the poor and the ashamed, let them come. Let the wandering and the afraid come.

Let those who are highway people and hedge people come. Let those who have fallen away come. Let the shamed and rejected come. Let those who are discouraged come.

Let those who have been abused come. Let those whose lives are filled with regret come. Whosoever will may come because the invitation is open to all and it's been paid in full by Jesus Christ.

The invitation is for you no matter what highway or hedge you find yourself in. That invitation reads, the Lord Jesus Christ has been commanded on behalf of God Almighty to invite you to the banquet. Behold everyone who thirsts, let him come to the waters and drink. Whosoever will may come, let him who is thirsty come for as many as received him.

That's all it took. As many as received him, it is to them he gave the power, the right, the ability to become the children of God to those who believe on his name because God so loved the world, John said, that he gave his only son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. That invitation is for you to come to the table regardless of who you are or where you are. There's some people that miss it because they don't understand. They don't understand how much God loves the unworthy and they don't understand the gospel. Here's the third kind of person who misses the party, Jesus said. Some people miss the party because they refuse to acknowledge that they are unworthy.

This of course would be the opposite of number two. And number two, people miss the party because they assume they're too unworthy to receive the invitation. But then Jesus talks about a bunch of people who miss the party because they refuse to acknowledge that they are unworthy, which is why they don't watch us, don't really take Jesus seriously. Again, the key to understand this parable is understand the difference between the first invitation and the second one. The first invitation is to get religious, which most of you have done. The second invitation is to actually experience the gospel, different invitation. Fact, religious people miss the gospel more than any other group.

Why? Because religion is the great substitute for a relationship with Jesus every time, okay? Because what religion wants to do is to convince you that you are worthy and to give you a few things you can do that will make you even worthier. So religion has always hated the message of Jesus because religious people would rather have a religion that just teaches you to live a good life. Religion would rather primarily teach you, you express your Christianity through being a social activist, to be generous, to be good to the poor, to be a better you, to be a one who lives strong, to be a good dad, to be a good husband, to be a good wife or mother.

So here's what's happened. As Christianity has gone mainstream, which it has in our culture, people have corrupted it. They've corrupted Jesus' message to say just those things. That what Jesus primarily wants is for you to be a better you. You need to be a better dad. You need to be a social activist and care about the poor.

Those are all great things. That is not the gospel. Just look at popular religious, just listen to popular religious messages and it's all about being a better version of what you already are. And what the gospel says is there's no version of what you are that's going to get into heaven. You need a brand new you.

You need Christ to die and raise in you. The gospel is that you got no worthiness. All your righteousness is like a filthy rag. You are the poor. You are the blind.

You are the diseased. Yes, God created you in his image. Yes, you have worth.

Yes, you are precious to him. But disease and sin, the sin, the disease of sin has so corrupted you that you are hopeless. That means you need to be saved.

You need to be rescued. You need to be born again. And I realize that those words may sound backward and uneducated to you. They may even sound primitive. I can assure you they sounded that way to the audience Jesus was talking to, which is why they rejected it. But these are the words of eternal life. Religious people always reject that because they want to see themselves as worthy. Jesus said in Matthew 5 that it was only the poor in spirit who could receive this message. Poor in spirit. There's poor in spirit and there's middle class in spirit.

People who are middle class in spirit always, watch this, always want to feel like I've got a little bit of spiritual credit in the bank. I've done some bad things. I'm not saying I haven't done some bad things. I've made my mistakes.

I'm guilty like everybody else. But I'm not a terrible person. I'm not a terrible person. I was misunderstood.

I was misunderstood. I was in a bad situation. I got in a bad lane. I got around some bad influences. The middle class in spirit say I may have done bad things, but I'm still a good person.

The poor in spirit, you know how they talk? I've done some good things. Even my good things were done for bad motives half the time.

Or at least they were soaked through with a lot of the stain of bad motives. When I was kind to people, I felt self-righteous about it. I felt better than everybody else. A lot of times I was kind to people so they'd be kind back to me. A lot of times I've done good things, but it's been for selfish reasons. I don't think I've ever done anything that was wholly pure. Even my righteousness feels like a filthy rag. It's not that they weren't righteous at all.

It's just that it was soaked through with my own sinful heart. And so you see your desperate need of Jesus's invitation because you're not the worthy one getting the invitation to the table. You're the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame.

You're the highway person, the hedge person that can't believe that they just got invited. George Whitefield, who's preaching Spawn the Great Awakening in the United States, historians say he preached basically one message with two points. He just preached this over and over and over again. Point number one, you got to repent of your sin.

That made sense to everybody. Everybody was like, yeah, got to repent of your sin. Got to stop doing the things that God has forbidden.

Point number two is what threw everybody. You got to repent of your righteousness because you have used your righteousness to cover up a heart that doesn't really belong to God. And it's your false sense of righteousness that has kept you, watch this, from casting yourself on the mercy of God and casting your life as an open book, as a blank check before Jesus to say whatever you want for me. You see, now all the sudden you're ready to understand why Jesus started this parable with that seemingly random advice about the importance of taking the low place. It is only if you're willing to take the lower place, that is only if you are willing to admit that you're the poor, the lame, the blind, and the crippled, only then will Jesus call you up to the high place at his party. Because if you think you deserve the high place, then you're going to get humiliated and sent back to the low place because the gospel is not that Jesus rewards the righteous with great seats around his table. The gospel is that there was only one who ever lived who deserved the high place, and he voluntarily took the low place for you. So when he died on the cross, he got into your place and he died for your sin and now offers you his high place at the table as a gift. The only way the gospel can be received is in humility, admitting that you got nothing about you that deserves that. It is something so beautiful you have no capacity to deserve it. And this parable about the low place, it's not just good social advice, it's the way of eternal life.

It's open to you if you want to receive it, but it has to be received in humility and total surrender. One of my favorite hymns was written by a young woman named Charlotte Elliott. We don't sing that a whole lot anymore, but it's still one of my favorites. Charlotte Elliott in her early 20s was an invalid. She'd groaned. She says by that point in her life, very bitter, angry against God because of her disability. She said, I struggle with this sense of shame that came first from my own disabilities. She said, secondly, with the depravity of my own sinful heart, how angry I was at God.

Well, in her mid 20s, she becomes a Christian. And so she decides to write a poem that later got put to music. Her brother, who was a Presbyterian minister said, my sister's poem has brought more people to Jesus than all my sermons combined.

The poem that she wrote goes like this, just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me and that thou bits me now unbelievably come to thee. O Lamb of God, I come just as I am poor, wretched, and blind, sight, riches, healing for the mind. Yea, all I need and be I find. So O Lamb of God, of course, I come just as I am doubt will receive, will welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, because thy promise I believe. O Lamb of God, I come.

See, it means that you can come wherever you are, whoever you are. But let me tell you, listen, to come, it's going to cost you everything. And I apologize for people that have told you otherwise, because they have told you a lie. They've told you, oh, just add Jesus to your life. Okay, pray this little prayer and you're going to be fine. Oh, get baptized.

Everything's going to be okay. I want you to listen to what Jesus said. If anybody comes to me and doesn't hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Did you know that's in the Bible? Would you say that compared to your love for and commitment to Jesus, that even your most intimate loyalties feel like hate? That there's nothing that comes in the way of obedience to Jesus? This doesn't mean you become perfect overnight. It doesn't mean you don't struggle with sin anymore. It just means you recognize how desperate you are for Jesus.

And so there's nothing that you would hold onto in his presence. And you've said, Lord, it's all yours. What I really got to have is you. Now that'll make you end up making you a better father and mother and brother and sister and all those things. But the point is you have to come to a point where you realize how desperate you are for Jesus. The only people who would tolerate that kind of statement are those who realize how desperate they and their children are for Jesus. And they say, you're Lord, and I'll follow you anywhere. Because what would it profit a person to gain the whole world?

What would it profit them to give their kids the best things and for them and their kids to lose their soul? Jesus has to have the first place in your heart. Is there anything that keeps you from obedience to Jesus? I know you're religious, but have you ever really surrendered control of your life to him and said, God, I have no hope but your mercy. I've told you that I had two invitations for you today. Invitation number one is for you to receive his invitation to save you and for you to follow him fully. A lot of you have been in church and you've been religious, but you've never done this. And I want to give you a chance to do that today. Some of you are coming back into the church.

You got invited this weekend. And I want to tell you, you've been making excuses as to why you're not going to follow Jesus. Stop making excuses. Today's excuses are going to be eternity's regrets. What are you going to wish five seconds into eternity?

What are you going to be glad you held onto that kept you from Jesus? Some of you are like, well, I don't know. I mean, I still got questions about... Great. Get your questions answered. Start that conversation today. You say, oh, well, yeah, the church has too many hypocrites. Stop saying that. You know that's not the reason. The medical profession has a lot of hypocrites. They got a lot of quacks.

You still take medicine. Somebody else's hypocrisy ain't got nothing to do with you. Right? Stop saying that. By the way, you should be glad Jesus loves hypocrites.

Well, a friend of mine says the church is basically a house full of misfits and a kingdom full of miracles, which means that there's room for another misfit and another person who needs a miracle and another hypocrite. So you can come on in, okay? Because you can experience the same healing that we are. You say, I don't know, man. I'll deal with this when I get older.

Yeah, go check on your oxen. But I'm gonna tell you that invitation might be closed when you get back. Not by us. We would never close the invitation. Because you might die, and that closes the invitation. Or Scripture says God may just allow your heart to harden where you're not even interested anymore. There's a lot of people who sit in a moment like this one. They hear the voice of the Holy Spirit like you are hearing him right now. And they say, no, I'll do it later. And God says, fine. And God lets your heart harden and you never again ask the question. I'm telling some of you, this could be your last moment that Jesus speaks to you in this way.

If you hear his voice, you should say yes, and you should stop making excuses. My other invitation I told you is to be baptized. Baptism and salvation are not the same thing. Baptism is said it's like the wedding ring. It's what you do to go public with your faith that's the first command.

Again, people in this room make all kinds of excuses. Well, I'm not ready. If you've trusted Christ, you're ready. It's not a statement about how worthy you are, how much you know about the Bible. It's a statement that you recognize that Jesus is your savior and you're not ashamed to proclaim that and you own that. So if you have trusted Christ, you're ready. People say, well, I don't know. It just didn't seem that important.

How's this going to actually change my life? I always want to say, excuse me, do you really want to start your Christian life by telling Jesus which of his commands are important and which ones aren't? Do you understand what it means to be a disciple? If you want to obey Jesus in a simple command like this one, how are you ever going to go all the way with him? People say, well, well, I know it's just really inconvenient.

I mean, I don't know most of these people and you want me to get wet in front of them? Honestly, y'all, if you're saying that, please hear me in love. I don't think you get Christianity at all. Jesus said that to follow him wants to take up a cross and die.

Inconvenience isn't a category that you bring to this decision. Some of you have made excuse after excuse and today is a defining moment. It's time for you to do today what God has told you to do. If you want to make a difference, then you have to be different. Daniel and his friends resolved to be guided by the Bible and not Babylon, and we can not only see the results in their story.

We can also be encouraged to do the same. Ask for your copy of the book of Daniel shining in Babylon, a nine part inductive Bible study. When you donate today at the suggested level of $35 or more, give us a call at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220, or it might be more convenient to give and request the study guide online at jdgrier.com. While you're on the website, you can also sign up for our weekly email to get ministry updates, information about new resources, and Pastor JD's latest blog post delivered straight to your inbox. It's a great way to stay connected with Summit Life, and it's completely free to subscribe. Sign up when you go to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovich, and I'm so glad to have you with us. Be sure to listen again tomorrow as we continue the teaching series in Luke 14 called Come to the Table on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.