The Great Banquet: Who Will Eat at God's Feast?

Again, welcome to Eastwood Baptist Church this morning. Happy New Year again to everyone.

Luke chapter 14, verses 7 through 24 is what we're looking at as Ms.

Luke 14:7–24

Sharon read the scripture earlier.

Really looking at the path to the feast, if you will. Listen to this.

Verse 15 of chapter 14 says this.

It says, blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.

But who is that one? And what road lies between today, think about it, and that feast?

The image of people taking their places at the feast in the kingdom of God is

really amplified in this parable that Jesus tells here in Luke chapter 14,

Luke 14 · chapter mention

especially verses 16 through 24 there.

The setting is the same house, by the way, of a prominent Pharisee where Jesus

actually healed the man, if you remember.

You remember that one? With dropsy.

And that is just today we would say edema is what he had.

And the parable is prompted, as we see in this next slide, by an anonymous guest

who declares to Jesus in verse 15, again,

blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.

Now that may strike us as kind of a little bit odd, you know,

slightly odd dinner party banter that we might be thrown out there,

but it does make some sense in context when you look at it.

Again, we're being pointed to Isaiah chapter 25 verses six through nine,

Isaiah 25 · chapter mention

which actually pictured the coming of the Messianic kingdom in terms of this sumptuous feast.

How many of you had a sumptuous feast over the holidays, right?

How many of you had more than one sumptuous feast, right?

All right. But this is unlike a feast we've ever known where God graciously

removes the pain and disgrace of his people.

And whether this guest exclamation here is actually motivated by genuine excitement

for the arrival of God's promise, or maybe a less noble desire to impress the

prominent rabbi with his piety,

Jesus actually takes the opportunity here to tell a parable that continues his

ministry of actually pressing on his hearers there,

their urgent need to respond properly to his call to discipleship.

Y'all, we need disciples of Christ, amen?

People who are learning, who are growing, who are going deeper,

becoming more spiritually mature in the faith.

But we see here opening up that there are, in this next slide, excuses, excuses.

This reminds me of an old Kingsman song. Anybody ever heard the gospel quartet, the Kingsman?

They had this hit years ago called Excuses, Excuses, or Excuses was the name of it.

And I used to sing it with my cousins when we were teenagers and we would sing

it together, but we stopped doing it because every time we sang it,

a hurricane would hit. I kid you not.

We would sing the song and we would hear, I guess it was the time of year,

hurricanes were coming. But anyway, but excuses.

The story that Jesus tells is fairly simple though, isn't it?

It begins with a man giving a banquet and invite many people in chapter 14, verse 16,

planning a party here without the benefit, think about it for a moment,

of clocks, no post offices like we know it, and no internet for sure, right?

Required that this servant be sent out to extend invitations.

He can't just post on Facebook and let people share, right?

And return with a sense of who would be in attendance.

That was his job. And the planning for the feast could then proceed with that

knowledge that a certain number of people had agreed to come.

And once the meal was prepared, a servant here commonly was dispatched to actually

call the guest again to come to the table in verse 17 that we see.

So obviously in those days, as in ours today, to back out of the invitation

at this point was very rude.

But in the parable that is exactly what happens right in fact it says they all

alike look at verse 18 began to make what excuses somebody once told me excuses

are like armpits everybody has a.

For why they could not now tend the feast, there was an excuse, right?

And these excuses run the range of human activity. Did you notice that?

And as we see in this next point here, guess what?

Financial. Look at verse 18. Financial.

Occupational in verse 19.

Familial obligations in verse 20. You know, scholars actually differ a little

bit on whether or not these excuses are legitimate at all.

Blomberg, theologian, actually remarks this. He said, what all three share is

an extraordinary lameness.

Is the way he saw it in scripture but edwards argues

that if the excuses are foolish then the sting

of the parable is drawn because we like the pharisees may

safely condemn them and those like them and so but in the end y'all the only

thing that matters as we see in this next point the only thing that matters

is that their response has what alienated and angered the host you see that in verse 21.

So in context, it's not difficult or it's not far-fetched to draw a straight

line from the setup of Jesus' parable to the Pharisees crowding around him at the dinner table.

If, you know, in the person of Jesus, God was extending invitations to the end

time messianic banquet,

then it would seem that the strict and religious Pharisees would be at the top

of the guest list, wouldn't it?

But guess what? They had responded to the invitation with a shocking rudeness as we see in opposition.

We saw that even back in chapter 11 verses 53 and 54.

And so now the indignant host was prepared to act in an equally shocking way.

And we see that in this passage.

The host actually finds himself in a difficult situation.

A feast, think about it y'all, has been readied and the house is prepared to receive visitors.

Some of y'all may have been involved in something like this,

not on this level. Some of you may have prepared the house to receive visitors. I don't know.

Some of you may have been running the vacuum cleaner, you know, in high gear.

I don't know. But anyway, all the readiness had been done, the feast,

the meal, everything ready to receive visitors.

But there's only one problem.

There are no guests coming.

There is no thought of canceling the banquet though. Instead,

the master sends out his servant to the small roads and back alleys of the city,

what, to bring in any guests who are willing to come.

Even the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame, it says in verse 21 of chapter 14.

And when that fails to fill the entire banquet room, as we see in verse 22,

the master extends the invitation even further, doesn't he?

Where to the highways to the hedges

of the countryside so that the house will be

full in verse 23 yeah even

to the hollers of baby net in spanish ford right i

mean it goes that far the opportunity to feast y'all was now extended to the

less desirable members of society those who could not think about this way lend

any prestige to the gathering and those whose qualification for attendance was

just their willingness to accept the invitation.

And the parable continues Jesus' message, y'all, that while the invitation to

join God's kingdom is extended to everyone, it does require a timely response.

Those fig trees, if you remember, that do not bear fruit during the season of

the owner's patience that we studied a week or so ago will be uprooted eventually,

right? They'll be cast away.

Those who fail to enter through the narrow door that we talked about last week

will be excluded once it is closed, once it is shut. We saw that in chapter 13, verses 24 and 25.

Those who do not come to the feast eastwood when they're called will never taste

the richness of the banquet.

Talks about that in verse 24.

See, the Pharisees here are clearly in the crosshairs of Jesus's teaching here.

But I want y'all to see something today as we start this new year.

We should not fail to see the warning to us as well.

The people, y'all, who ought to be at the party, the religious,

the wealthy, the successful, are the ones who find themselves excluded.

We see in this next point, and so we're all invited to respond to Jesus's kingdom invitation, right?

But we should not presume that our invitation is permanent.

I mean, Jesus could come back at any moment, right?

If we make other things, Eastwood, as we see in this next slide,

If we make other things, even good things like work and family,

if we make them a priority above coming to the feast of the kingdom,

we're going to find that we're shut out.

We're shut out. And if half of the parable shock here is located in the people

who refuse to come to the banquet, guess what?

The other half is found in those who do accept the invitation.

The crippled, remember? The poor, the blind, the lame are not the people that

we naturally think of as those who have the inside track to anything,

let alone God's kingdom party.

God's going to throw this party, this banquet. I mean, the wedding feast of

the lamb for us, right? I mean, you want to go? Do you want to be there?

But Luke's gospel here highlights the way that Jesus's arrival brings that reversal

of fortune, if you will, with the poor. Get this. Don't miss this today.

The poor being exalted and the powerful being brought low.

And, you know, James 2, 5 talks about this in 5, 1. In the kingdom of God,

it's better to have a lowly and humble attitude than to be externally pious, rich, and powerful.

Those who deserve the invitation oftentimes do not come.

But those who know y'all that they don't belong are the ones who won't miss out on the feast.

You know, Isaiah, actually, Isaac Watts, excuse me, he actually wrote a hymn.

I don't know, haven't you ever heard of this one? is called How Sweet and Awful

is This Place, Isaac Watts.

And it captures this sentiment. I want to read you a little bit of that hymn.

He says, while all our hearts and all our songs join to admire the feast,

each of us cry with thankful tongues, Lord, why was I a guest?

Why was I a guest? Jesus' guide to table manners.

This brings us to the next slide this morning because this is so important for

us as we follow this thought in this parable.

If the parable of the great banquet here unpacks the membership of the kingdom,

namely the outsiders will find themselves on the inside and the insiders will find themselves where?

On the outside, right? And Jesus' other teaching at the dinner gathering illustrates

how to live wisely, church, in light of that reality.

Banquets in the ancient world were oftentimes, y'all, an occasion to just publicly

display the social status of the guests.

The most important people, even if we saw in this passage, were seated closest to the host.

A seat far away from the host was

an indication that you were a person of relatively little significance.

And at this particular gathering, it seems that the people were not assigned

specific seats, but were left to organize themselves.

And the result, as you might imagine, as we see in this passage,

was a bit of posturing and josting for the best position.

With people picking, as it says in verse 7 of Luke 14, what?

The places of honor at the table.

And picking them for themselves, right? And so in this environment here,

don't miss this, Jesus tells a parable.

At first, Jesus' teaching doesn't seem like a parable, even though here as we

look in this passage, Luke refers to it as such.

But it really kind of, I don't know about you, but it strikes me as maybe more

if Jesus is giving a lesson to social etiquette, you know, how to throw a party,

how to seat oneself at the table.

But if we look a little bit closer, it becomes obvious.

As we see in this next point that Jesus is talking about a much larger principle,

Eastwood, the counterintuitive nature of the kingdom of God.

Remember I told y'all before that it's an upside down kingdom?

It's upside down. If you understand the meaning of the parable of the great

banquet with its surprise guest list here, then we'll not be like those scrambling

to exalt themselves at the dinner table.

In verses 8 and 9, look at it.

Jesus envisions a party where a very important person shows up after the guests have been seated.

And at that point, the host would have to find a place of honor for them,

as it would be a tremendous breach of etiquette.

Not to give them an appropriate seat there close to the host.

And realistically, y'all, the host would not be willing to ask everyone at the

table to shift down a spot.

That would result in chaos. But instead, you know what they did?

They would choose one person to actually relocate from the center of the party

all the way down to the last open seat.

As we see in this next point in light of this is would Jesus by the way with

echoes of Proverbs 25 6 and 7 he advises his audience what in verse 10 to what.

Take the lowest place, the lowest seat. That seems upside down, doesn't it?

That's upside down kingdom thinking. You know why? Why?

So that they will be publicly honored by their host as they're elevated to a more prominent seat.

By deliberately, y'all, downplaying their social status, the guest sets into

motion, what? a chain of events that will result in their actually receiving

public honor in this particular setting.

And y'all, as with all parables, we got to be careful not to press the details too far.

It's fairly safe to say that Jesus was not concerned with making sure that his

disciples received good seats, right?

That's not the point of this at a dinner party. And he certainly is not advocating

these feasts, like try to use reverse psychology where I'm going to sit at the

lowest place because I know they're going to, that's not what he's talking about

at all. It's not manipulation in any way.

But in fact, Jesus, when, when he does get around to giving specific party planning

advice here to the host in verses 12 and 14, look at it.

He explicitly tells him not to plan his guest list based on what the other people

can do for him. Don't miss that.

Don't miss that. Instead, we should understand this parable as an illustration

just of a principle, y'all, that Jesus is teaching.

If you want to get ahead at a dinner party, the way forward is the opposite

of what you would initially expect.

And you see in this next slide here, in the same manner, the way to be great

in the kingdom of God is to what?

Humble yourself. Humble oneself. For God is a God who will humble those who

exalt themselves, and he will exalt those who humble themselves.

It tells us that in verse 11, also in Proverbs 3, 34. And that's quoted in James 4, 6 and 1 Peter 5, 5.

It can only be this way if we're to follow y'all a glorious king who,

as we saw weeks ago, who stooped down to actually wash his disciples' feet.

Wow. upside-down kingdom, the one who came not to be served, but to what? To serve.

And who was exalted, y'all, through the humiliation of the cross,

it says in Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

So in our day and age, think about it, we're in 2026.

Y'all got it. We're in the new year, right? But in our day and age,

we're not usually very anxious about where we're seated at a dinner party, are we?

I mean, some of us are just like, give me some food, right?

We may not even be tempted to look down on the people in Jesus' day,

or actually may be tempted to look down on them, possibly, because we don't

relate in that sense, right?

Maybe blatantly fighting for this public recognition. It's like,

oh, wow, they were kind of crazy to do that.

But let me just say, in 2026, We have our own ways of demonstrating favor and honor, don't we?

What about the number of likes and followers we receive on social media to the

subtle way that our physical appearance or our job or our car or our neighborhood

or our slot in a social pecking order,

or our names on a plaque or something else, right?

There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things in and of themselves, but guess what?

We run into spiritual danger when our hearts begin to crave the honor from others that attends them.

Y'all, as we see in this next point, the ultimate antidote to that kind of glory hunger,

if you will, is finding your meaning and your honor and being the recipient

of Jesus's sacrificial love. Let me say that again.

The ultimate antidote to that kind of glory hunger is finding your meaning and

your honor and being the recipient of Jesus's sacrificial love.

Y'all, humility in God's kingdom, humility, take the lowest place.

Don't seek your name in lights. Be humble, because when you're humble in God's

kingdom, you will be exalted.

Now, that's not the way of our world, is it? In fact, that's not the way of

a lot of our churches, is it?

Humbling oneself under the mighty hand of God so that he will exalt us in due time.

As you see in this next slide, when your heart, when my heart is captivated

by the way that God has made much of you by sending his one and only son to save you,

you'll begin to be freed from living for the recognition of other people.

You won't have that problem anymore because you receive your recognition,

your identities found in Jesus.

Not in whether or not your name's in lights or whether or not you get the best

seat or whether or not you get 150,000 likes.

It's all because Jesus made much of you by dying in your place on the cross.

And when your identity is found in Jesus, guess what?

You have nothing to be proud of other than the fact that Jesus loved you. Hallelujah.

And even that, you don't really, it's just you're unworthy. I'm unworthy, right?

But we put himself, we put ourself in his hands And I promise you,

he will exalt you in due time, in due time. Be humble.

Be willing to take the lowest place. Those who understand the gospel of the

great banquet ought to live with humble gratitude and generosity towards those in need.

You know, it's a cruel irony, but in our pride is rooted both in an inflated

sense of personal worth. These people should honor me.

You know, they don't know what all sacrifices I've made, right?

And also, on the flip side, in a fear that others will not share that same inflated

opinion that we do of ourselves.

In other words, I'll feel shame if those people don't honor me.

But y'all, with its twin messages of our unworthiness here to receive the invitation

and God's extravagant love, he's would, for us, the gospel of the great banquet

severs both of those roots.

And it leaves us free, Eastwood, to find our value and our worth in God's love.

Amen. If nothing else this year, I hope you can realize this.

We start off this year, man.

If you find your value and worth in God's love and you are humbled under his

mighty hand and you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,

yes, all those things will be added to you as well. All of it.

As tim keller wrote he said humility is a byproduct of belief in the gospel of christ.

That's a pretty simple sentence but it's true humility is

just a byproduct of belief in the gospel in the gospel he said we have a confidence

not based in our performance but in the love of god in christ man that we would

do well eastwood to know this remember it let it sink deep in our hearts in 2026.

That frees us, he said, from having to always be looking at ourselves.

Our sin was so great, nothing less than the death of Jesus could have saved us.

He had to die for us, but his love for us was so great, Jesus was glad to die for us. Wow.

This brand new year, 2026, ask yourself today, which other priority in your

life would be most likely to become an excuse for why you can't submit to Jesus

right now where you're at?

You remember all the others that were mentioned here today? Legit or not,

are we going to make the excuses in 2026?

Are we going to humble ourselves and have the question in our hearts,

Lord, why was I even a guest at all?

You know why? Because he loved us. God demonstrated his love toward us and that

while we were still sinners, y'all, Christ died for us.

He wanted to give us the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

As you stand today, I just want you to take a moment as you stand and bow your heads for a moment.

Ask yourself today, have you

humbled yourself at the foot of the cross and said, Lord, I'm unworthy.

Lord, I need you as my Savior, as my King. Lord, I need your righteousness, Lord.

Lord, I don't want to live another day without putting you in the proper place, Lord.

Lord, I want to take the least of the seats, Lord.

Lord, I want to follow you in

everything, Lord. I want you to receive all the honor and all the glory.

Man, I can't think of a better way to start living 2026 than to liberate yourself

to be freed from living for the recognition of other people.

What difference will it make to the way you approach your work life this year?

Your life at your home, your service for your church even, and your thinking

about evangelism, all of it. How is that going to affect you?

Today is a great day to say, Lord, I humble myself. I repent of anything I need to repent of, Lord.

I want to serve you in your kingdom.

I want to be a part of this kingdom.

Lord, I know I'm not worthy, but you've invited me. The call has gone out.

Will you come? Will you respond?

Father God, even right now, I pray as your Holy Spirit is just moving again in our midst, Lord.

I just pray today we'd respond, Lord, that God, that we would humble ourselves

under your mighty hand, Lord, that we would not have to wait for the day that

you humble us, Lord, but that we would be humble before you, Lord.

I pray that you would just strip pride and arrogance and, Lord,

any selfishness, Lord, any vain conceit, Lord, anything like that,

Lord, you'd strip it all away.

Lord, that we can come before you, Lord, and sit humbly at your feast.