When one of those who were reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But Jesus said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many, and at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come for everything is now ready.
But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, I've bought a field and I must go out and see it, please have me excused. And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them, please have me excused.
And another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, go out quickly to the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. And the servant said, sir, what you have commanded has been done and still there is room. And the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled.
For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. Now, great crowds accompanied him and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Let's pray. Our great, good Heavenly Father, you are the one who gives mouths and ears and hearts and everything that needs to work for your message to get through tonight. And we come to you knowing that we are needy, that you can make them work. Please let my tongue be true to your word. I pray for the ears to be able to hear what you are saying through it.
I pray for all of us to be drawn closer into the fellowship with you that is worth more than anything else. Amen. Do you remember George Bailey? George Bailey was a talented young man.
George Bailey was going places. He was smart and he was ambitious and he had a dream to see the world and to do great things. And that dream died.
You remember the movie. First, when he was on his way out the door to do it, take his world trip. His father had a stroke and died. And so he gave the trip up to stay back and tend for the pretend to the family savings and loan business for a few months.
The one that had meant so much to his father. And then when he was ready to go off to college after those few months were up, he learned that if he left, the board was going to close down that old savings and loan. So he gave up his college plans for now and decided to stay to keep it alive because it meant so much to his father.
And he understood the impact that it had on the community. Well, the plan was that after he gave his college money to his younger brother, Harry, and the plan was that when Harry came back from college, he would go. Well, Harry came back engaged and with a great job offer from his father-in-law. And George didn't feel right about holding Harry to his promise. So he let him go get married and take his other job. And so now George realizes he's stuck with that savings alone. The last straw came on his honeymoon. He was finally going to go take a trip to see the world. And there was a run on the bank and he used his honeymoon money to save the savings alone so it could stay open.
And that was it. George never left Bedford Falls. He never got to see his dream come true. And at the end of the movie, he's feeling pretty depressed about it.
And he thinks that his life was a failure, that his life hadn't been worth living. And famously, an angel gives him a vision of what the Bedford Falls would have been like if he had not done what he had done. And after experiencing all that, he realizes that the sacrifices he had made were for his family and friends. And it was worth it. It was worth it.
And he was glad. In the last 10 years, another movie came out on the same theme. It's about two people with dreams. A man and a woman.
The man wants to open a jazz club and the woman wants to open or wants to become an actress. And they are paths cross and they are great for each other. They have wonderful chemistry.
You just know these two are meant to be together forever. And they get to the end of the movie and they realize we can't do that if we're going to have our dream. So they decide to separate and pursue what they dreamed. And five years later, we see they got it.
And they seem happy and content. But by some chance, they bump into each other and the movie gives us a vision. They have this flashback and they like imagine. I don't know if it's them or the movies are showing us, but this is imagining. What if they rewound and one of them had sacrificed their dreams so they could be together? And they go through the stages and you see they would have been really happy. And the movie just leaves you unsettled.
Like did they do the right thing? And that's the point. The movie makers want you to know you can't have it all. Anything that you love the most comes at a cost of something else. So the question is not does love win?
The question is which love wins? And that's what Jesus is teaching us in this passage about the cost of discipleship. Jesus is telling you that in order to have him, there's going to be a loss of other things. And now that loss does not necessarily happen all at once. Actually, ordinarily, it does not happen all at once.
Ordinarily, it happens like it happened to George Bailey. You don't think you're losing everything at once. It's just one choice after another.
Jesus or this thing, Jesus or that thing. And then by the end, you realize what you've lost and then you might start to feel grumpy about it. And Jesus is warning you this is going to be coming.
So don't be surprised when it comes. But just as George figured out in the end that this was all worth it, so will you. Because there is nothing more worth it than Jesus Christ, than having him for yourself. And that is true even of family and friends. So the Wonderful Life movie got a lot right. But the ultimate thing isn't even family and friends. Jesus says that in our passage. Sometimes that has to go, too. You have to be prepared for every last thing to go.
Because if you want to have what you want in life, you have to decide what it is and be ready to pay the cost. My wife was recently reading Elizabeth Elliot's first book. She actually wrote it. She's a missionary married to Jim.
And it was before they were even married she wrote this book. And there was a woman in her team in Ecuador that was a wonderful servant. Godly woman. Loved the Lord.
Joyful woman. And before her call of the mission field, she had been engaged to a man that she loved very much. And when she realized her call and that he realized he was not called to that, they broke off the engagement. And with that came a broken heart. And she went to Ecuador and served faithfully and joyfully.
But she never went back to England because she knew that if she went back, she wouldn't be able to bear it. And she'd be tempted to be drawn away again. That was a real love and a noble love.
Most of us in here have been married, are married, are getting married. There's nothing wrong with that. There are good things. Jesus is better.
And she knew that. For people here at the Sunday evening church crowd, grand sacrifices like that, we nod. We're like, yes, I'm prepared. I'm ready to do something big for Jesus. But I think one of the things our passage also shows for us, for the religious people, is that it's often not the grand sacrifices that we turn down. It's the ordinary business of life that keeps us from following Jesus. Our parable that we opened with begins with a religious man. He declares something we would all agree with.
Blessed is anyone, is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. And this is what leads Jesus to respond. So his primary audience is religious people.
His primary audience are people who think that the kingdom of God sounds like a good thing. And he goes on. And this parable, then, he describes a great banquet. In the Greek, a very large dinner. So a dinner is expensive, especially in those days.
Banquets weren't common days. So this person that's having the great banquet must be quite important. And it costs a lot of money and you're getting invited to a very important person's dinner. This was an honor. It was a privilege.
It was a good thing to go. And there's a time between when the invitations arrive and when the call to come arrives. You can imagine there are people there looking forward to this dinner.
This is the audience, the religious person audience. These are people that are looking ahead to it. And then it says they all start to give excuses. Now, when we hear that in English, they all gave excuses. Are we on the right?
Yeah, we are. Make excuses to us, to our ears in English. Sounds like somebody's making up excuses. Sounds like they don't want to be there and they're just coming up with some reason to not hurt someone's feelings. In the Greek, it literally just means they refused. They just refused. The Apostle Paul uses that word to talk about things he refused. There's nothing in the language itself that implies that they're being insincere about their reasons for not coming. And given the context and given that he's talking to people that are likely looking forward to this great event, they probably did want to come. But what happened is the ordinary business of life just got in the way. And that just started to feel more important and more pressing to them. And so the first one says, I bought a field.
In the Greek, it could be any piece of land, not necessarily agriculture. It could be for somebody's home. I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. The next said, I bought five yokaboxone business trading dealings.
If you ever bought something of any significance, you can relate to wanting to go see something you just bought. And I go to examine them. Please have me excused. And another said, I've married a wife. Family obligations. It's good to go see your wife if you've just been married.
And therefore, I cannot come. All right, so these, home, work, family, this is just the ordinary business of life. And when we read this, at first it just seems so trivial. Like this is a great big event, probably a once in a lifetime event. He can go see his oxen later.
His wife's still going to be there the next day. This is so trivial. But that's the thing about the ordinary business of life is it always seems more demanding and more urgent and more important than it really is. I keep a prayer journal and that is where I try to unload the things that are bothering me and pray to God about them.
And then I will go back like at the end of the year and I'll see how God has answered prayers and I'll give him thanks. But one of the things that always strikes me is, man, that thing just seems so trivial that I was worried about. And he came through every time. Every time he comes through and then every time I'm still bothered by something, by the next thing up. And always in hindsight, it's trivial. Never in hindsight does spending time with God ever seem trivial.
But everything else I think does seem trivial. And, you know, the latest thing for me right now, as many of you know, we're in the process of moving back to Texas. Breaks my heart to leave y'all and we'll go down that. But we're in the process of doing that. And so I was worried about getting the house sold. All right. Got that in one day.
Praise God. All right. Now I got to get the movers lined up.
OK. Yeah. Now what are we going to do with the three day window between when the movers get up? You know, it's just and it's like I can't rest until all the logistics are settled and then I can rest. But the thing about life is that logistics are never settled.
There's always something else that comes. And but it feels urgent because we feel not at rest until it's resolved. The banquet is where we rest.
The feast with God is where we rest. And that's one other thing to point out about this. I think when we read this parable, our minds, when we think of the kingdom of God, our minds go to the final consummation of his kingdom when Jesus returns. And that is true that there is something about the final consummation of the kingdom that's different. But I don't think this passage is primarily talking about that.
And there's three reasons for that. Number one, when Jesus came, the scripture says his kingdom was inaugurated right now. So his kingdom is here. It's in our midst. And we're called into fellowship with him right now.
Number two, when Jesus comes back the second time, there ain't going to be any excuses. It's going to be like lightning flashing from one end of the sky to the next. All ordinary business will cease. Every knee will bow, whether they want to or not. OK, that's going to be the end.
All right. And then the other reason is that right after this, he starts talking about the cost of following me right now. So this is a parable about how the ordinary business of life keeps religious people like you and me from doing the thing that they say they want to do. And so now is the time to ask yourself, what is that thing that when I come into worship, I'm distracted and I can't be with I just can't just can't focus on God right now. Or, you know, you're you're you know, you wake up in the morning and you know, that's a model in the Bible that you pray in the morning, in the evening.
And that's a time to spend time with the Lord. You're like, God, don't interrupt me right now. I'm in the middle of something. All right.
That is what these people are doing. Don't interrupt me right now. I'm in the middle of something. So. The parable goes on.
The master of the house is angry. And that's understanding because it is quite a snub. These are trifles. This is a special occasion.
He's planned for it. They are on the invite list. They were specially named and called out to be guests at his banquet.
And they've turned him down for trifles. And then he goes out and he pulls in the poor, the lame, the blind. People that are homeless, living along the roads.
Why is that? Why is it that Jesus ministered there and found so much fruit? When the religious people, the status people, there was comparatively less fruit.
It's because they don't have other things that they think are more important than being with Jesus. And that is the key for us to understand. That we have to identify ourselves with them. We are them. We are the poor, the lame, the blind.
We have nothing to offer. Our things that we are obsessing over are completely ridiculous. And that we have nothing more important than being with Jesus. That's who comes into the kingdom of God. And he fills his house with us.
With lots of us. He also says that those who were invited, none of those, the last line on that slide, none of those who were invited shall taste of my feast. They got what they wanted, but there's a sense of finality to it. Like you had your chance and it passed and now the door's closed. That is a just punishment and it's a warning.
But I also want to add what we see in chapter 15 now. God really wants you there. He really does. When your seat as one of those that he has called and invited is missing.
That has an effect. Imagine that you were a chaperone of a field school field ship to the Natural Science Museum. You count 100 heads. You guys have a great day at the museum.
They get back on the bus. And now there's 99 heads. And so you double count again. Triple check.
No, it's 99. Roll call. Call out every name. Susie. Susie. Susie. She's missing. Has anyone seen Susie?
You look around. She's not at the bus. Okay, I'll go back and look for her. You're back into the museum.
She's not in the lobby. You go back to the last exhibit where you were. It's the fish exhibit.
She's not looking at the fish. Okay, let's retrace our steps. You go to the earth exhibit. She's not there. All right, now your steps are picking up. All right, dinosaurs. Okay, she's not at the dinosaurs. Now your steps are picking up into a jog. You're jogging down the hall. Susie.
Susie. And your name starts calling louder. It starts calling it louder and louder. And finally, you round the corner. There she is. Just a little pumpkin sitting in front of a little screen with her headphones on and can't hear anything.
All right. Oh, what a relief. You grab her. You scoop her up. You come back and everyone's, Hey, Susie. Susie didn't even know she was missed.
She's like, Oh, yeah, everyone's happy to have me. All right, God, Jesus describes that kind of experience when his sheep are lost. The hundred sheep parable that you're familiar with.
So we will not reread it here. And what I will read, though, is his rejoicing. And when he has found it, when he's found the lost sheep, the hundred sheep, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.
All right, so there's the good news. If you count yourself among the people who turned down Jesus's invitation to come to the banquet, guess what? You can still repent and come in. Repentance is being found.
And he rejoices over you with singing when that happens. Compare now the sense of urgency and importance that Jesus expressed about your soul and about the souls of other lost people who aren't yet at this banquet. Compare that to what it is that you find urgent and important on a daily basis.
And that should amaze you about the love of Jesus Christ for people, individuals, not in bulk, the one. He goes on and describes the lost silver coin. In the Greek, it's a drachma. It's one day's labor, so each coin is a whole day's work. This woman has ten of them. There are ten precious, precious possessions of her, hers, but the nine is not enough. It's just the one that she's missing and wants. And it says, if she loses one coin, does she not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?
And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. It is hard for me, as somebody who believes firmly in the sovereignty of God, to imagine, to picture God as somebody experiencing some kind of urgency and then some kind of rejoicing when it comes. I mean, God has everything under control.
Everything is exactly in the place where it needs to be. Everything happens when he decrees it will happen. There are no mysteries with God. And so, frankly, I don't know how in my brain to reconcile that. It's just that Jesus says they're both true, okay? So we tend to, as Calvinists, emphasize a lot the providence of God, which is a comforting doctrine, and it's a very biblical doctrine and a true doctrine. But just as much, Jesus is saying here, this is not fake emotion. This is real rejoicing over something that happened and somehow there is a condition before it happened that affected the Lord and gave him a sense of urgency about it.
How does that happen? I don't know. How are there three persons and one God in the Trinity? I don't know. How is Jesus both God and man?
I don't know. You know, so this is, but it's true. And if we don't think about that, if we skip past these passages without dwelling on that, we will miss out on the passion that Jesus has for your soul, personally. He's passionate for it. And for other souls that are your brothers and sisters that you have not met yet. And he's not resigned to the situation, he's actively seeking them through y'all by his word and his spirit. You know the story of the prodigal son that's famous.
The next one in our chapter 15. The son disrespectfully demands his share of the inheritance. While his father is still alive, which means basically I'd rather have your money than you.
It doesn't matter to me if you're alive or dead, just give me your money. And then this son goes off and squanders it in reckless living. And as he's sitting in a pigsty, experiencing the earthly consequences for what he's done, he comes to himself. He's ashamed of himself. He realizes his father's servants have it better than he has it, and he resolves to go back.
Tell his father, Father, I don't deserve to be your son. Just let me work with your servants. Let me be one of your hired hands. Picking up in verse 20. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him. Think about that. Let's pause at that. His father saw him while he was a long way off.
How? Well, this is the third parable in a string of parables about urgently looking for something that was lost. His father was watching for him. He was waiting.
I bet every day he got up. Is this the day? Is this the day my son returns? Standing there on the porch, looking out over the horizon. I think I see. No, it's just a dog.
No, just a delivery person. And then one day he sees this little head bobbing up over the horizon. He's like, that's a person. I recognize that step. It's a little slower now. It's dragging. But that's unmistakable.
That's my son. And he takes off running. In the ancient Near East, a man did not run. It was undignified. It was embarrassing. But this man forgets himself.
He completely forgets himself. He runs and he gets his hands, his arms around his son's neck before the son even gets the words, his speech out of his mouth. I tease my wife because I tell her I never actually proposed to her. There was there was such anticipation about when that was going to happen. And I had this set up where she followed a trail of roses and then she arrived at the ring and I was waiting for her. And I got down on a knee and she ran up and grabbed me around my neck and said yes before I could even.
I'll tell you now, I actually said it. But but it was after he said yes. So I always I've teased her for 20 years that I never actually proposed to her. I did. But she said yes before I could. She didn't.
There was such anticipation and and just relief, frankly, that I'd finally done it. The father here did not sit here and test his son's repentance. Is your repentance repentance of the quality to show that you're truly sorry?
Are you a true, true believing person? He did not, you know, make sure he knew he got his lesson. He received him the moment he made a move in his direction.
Anxiously, eagerly, excitedly. And he didn't think about the cost. He fattened the calf, which was a very expensive thing. You could think about that.
All right? Why didn't he count the cost? He didn't care about the cost.
He didn't care. He had his son. You know, was he sitting there thinking about how his son has made him a lot poorer? He took half his wealth. I don't know what proportion it was.
Maybe it's a third. He's a lot poorer now. No.
Didn't think about that. He was dishonored in the sight of all. The fact that his son did that to him in the ancient Near East, highly dishonoring. Okay? He lost his respect. He ran publicly. That's embarrassing.
Okay? He lost that. Receiving him back after all he'd done, people were going to talk. He didn't think about the cost of his reputation. He didn't think about the cost of his money. He cared about the relationship.
That was worth it. So here's the big point. Our relationship with Jesus, yes, it does have costs. But there's costs on both sides. And it costs him way more than it costs you. The one non-negotiable cost, the thing that will not be given up, the first question of the shorter catechism, the chief end of man, to glorify God and enjoy him together.
We read that this morning. The glory of God will not be sacrificed. Enjoyment of God will not be sacrificed on either side.
So what that means is that sin will not be tolerated on either side if we want to have a relationship with a glorious God. And that costs him a lot more than it costs you. The Father in our story endured some losses, yes. He just took them.
He took them and there was no satisfaction. Father in our story, his prized love above all else, his only begotten son, he took every last piece of wickedness that we could pour out on him and put in his place. And Jesus, as he went to that cross, he sweat blood knowing what he was about to face.
But you know what the scripture also says? It says he endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. So he did not do it begrudgingly.
He did it joyfully. It was worth it. It was worth it to him. It was worth it for him to have you in his fellowship.
And so he did it and did not dwell on what it cost him. And so now you have a father who's given his only begotten son. You have his son who's given his life. You have the Holy Spirit who's come and indwelt in you. And they've called and invited you to a rich feast. He's killed the fattened calf in your honor.
He's celebrated that you've been found. Well, you now say, sorry, don't interrupt me right now. Imagine if the son in our parable of the prodigal son had said that to his dad.
Sorry, dad, I've got other business I've got to do right now. You can take your calf and share it with someone else. You've been called to a feast.
Enjoy it. And it is true. It is true that there is a cost that you will face in your life. There will be things that you will give up. But when you understand the reward, it will not feel like you've given something up. If somebody were to hand you a million dollars and you had to take an afternoon to go deposit it in the bank, you would not be counting the minutes that you've lost from your afternoon.
You'd be counting up those dollars. The man in the Bible, the story Jesus told, who found the treasure in the field. That man, in his joy, sold everything he had so that he could buy that field and have that treasure. Why?
It was an easy calculation. The treasure was worth a lot more. It did not feel to him like such a loss. Now, it does take eyes of faith to see that treasure. Sometimes it doesn't feel like there's much treasure in that field. Sometimes you will feel like, I've sold, I've lost much stuff, and all I have is a field. That is a true feeling that Christians will have in this life. Sometimes your faith will see it more clearly than others.
But that treasure is still there. Sometimes it'll be fuzzy. Sometimes it'll be dark. But you can remember that time when you saw it clearly. You will know the word that you've heard spoken. You will have seen the transformation in other people's lives. You will have felt it in your own, that spark of divine light. You will remember days when, yes, I had that.
And so what you will do is you will keep going. You know it's there. I've heard it. I've experienced it.
I know it's true. And you will keep choosing Jesus. And nothing will hold you back. And you will gain Him.
And it will be worth it. Let's pray. O Lord Jesus, how you are worth it. Our great and good treasure, our fellowship, our joy. Lord, we eagerly await the day when we can see you face to face. But for now, give us eyes of faith. We may see and know what's true and beautiful and good in the fellowship that we have with you at your great feast. Amen.
