Choosing the True Banquet—The Feast of Life or the Feast of Death | Mt 14:1-21

good morning

everyone okay uh if you could all stand

with me and open your Bibles to Matthew

Matthew 14:1–21

14 verses 1- 21 if that sounds familiar

uh to you it's the exact same thing we

looked at last week I'll explain why in

a moment but Matthew 14: 1- 21 okay

listen to God's word at that time Herod

the tetrarch heard about the fame of

Jesus and he said to his servants this

is John the Baptist he has been raised

from the dead that is why these

miraculous powers are at work in him for

Herod had seized John and bound him and

put him in prison for the sake of

herodias his brother Philip's wife

because John had been saying to him it

is not lawful for you to have her

and though he wanted to put him to death

he feared the people because they held

him to be a

prophet but when herod's birthday came

the daughter of

herodias the daughter of herodias danced

before the company and pleased Herod so

that he promised with an oath to give

her whatever she might ask prompted by

her mother she said give me the head of

John the Baptist here on a

platter and the King was sorry but

because of his Oaths and his guests he

commanded it to be given he sent and had

John beheaded in the prison and his head

was brought on a platter and given to

the girl and she brought it to her

mother and his disciples came and took

the body and buried it and they went and

told

Jesus now when Jesus heard this he

withdrew from there in a boat to a

desolate place by himself but when the

crowds heard it they followed him on

foot from the towns

when he went ashore he saw a great crowd

and he had compassion on them and healed

their

sick now when it was evening the

disciples came to him and said this is a

desolate place and the day is now over

send the crowds away to go into the

villages and buy food for

themselves but Jesus said they need not

go away you give them something to eat

and they said to him we we have only

Five Loaves here and two fish and he

said bring them here to me then he

ordered the crowds to sit down in the

grass and taking the Five Loaves and the

two fish he looked up to heaven and said

a blessing then he broke the Loaves and

gave them to the disciples and the

disciples gave them to the crowds and

they all ate and were

satisfied and they took up 12 baskets

full of the broken pieces left over and

those who ate were about 5,000 men

besides women and

children the grass withers and the

flower Fades but the word of our God

endures

forever father I pray that your word

today would find uh a spot in our hearts

that we might believe it that you would

give us a mind to understand it and that

we would see uh the challenge of this

word and the promise this word uh gives

to us in our lives we love you God and

pray this in Jesus name

amen please have a

seat well

uh couple things first it's great to be

back up here in the Pulpit it's been a

few months since I've had the

opportunity to preach uh thank you for

pastor Andy and Pastor David and Pastor

Nathan for taking up a lot of the the

slack in that and for our two guest uh

preachers um why are we doing the same

passage all over again well let me just

give you the process by which we put

together

uh these uh our sermon uh series for the

year back in August or SE actually no

this was back in

20123 we divided the gospel of Matthew

up into uh I think 50 or 60 some odd

sections that we would do over a

two-year period and we just naturally

put uh chapter 14: 1 through 12 and 13-

21 as two separate sections because they

were two separate

stories when we studi these together as

a staff team a few weeks ago uh we

realized that uh actually you can't

understand these two stories apart from

each other they uh they work together

they are meant to be uh preached

together we were firmly convinced of

that but we couldn't really alter the

schedule so we what are we going to do

because uh we've got uh we've got a

schedule to keep we can't really merge

these two together and so we decided

that there is both uh these two passages

belong together and that they are so

rich that we probably cannot do justice

to them in one sermon and so we just

decided we'd preach two sermons on

Matthew 14 1- 21 so today is part two of

that sermon uh I've entitled this part

uh you know the the Feast of life or the

Feast of death or the banquet of life or

the banquet of death uh because that is

what we have contrasted here as uh last

Matthew 14 presents these two

contrasting Banquets one that leads to

death that's herod's feast and one that

leads to life and that's Jesus's

miraculous feeding uh in the

wilderness Pastor David last week looked

at the contrast between these two

Banquets and focused on the two kings

one King Herod chose to exercise

murderous power to protect himself the

other Jesus

chose compassion foreshadowing his

sacrifice for Sinners on the cross and

we looked and saw Pastor David showed us

how uh Jesus's breaking of the bread uh

and the way he looks up He blesses it he

breaks it it is paralleled perfectly uh

in the inauguration of the Lord's Supper

in Matthew 26 uh verse

28 this week we are going to go uh we're

going to go deeper and look more at the

nature of these two Banquets and G

detail U what we see here is that there

is a fundamental

antithesis represented in these two uh

in these two feasts an antithesis uh

that goes back all the way uh to the

fall in Genesis 3 if you remember in

Genesis 3 uh you've got Adam and Eve Eve

eats the fruit uh she and Adam are then

uh fall into sin the whole human uh race

is plunged into ruin but God makes a

promise in Genesis

Genesis 3:15

3:15 where he says to the

woman or he says to the serpent uh who

is a standing for Satan that there will

be enmity there will be hatred there

will be Warfare between your seed your

Offspring and the seed The Offspring of

the woman you uh he will crush your

head and you will bruise his heel and so

there is this war and that they'll come

a time where there's this final crushing

blow where in the process of crushing

the Serpent's head the seed of the woman

has his heel bruised that there will be

a suffering Conquest over sin and

death and then the whole rest of the Old

Testament really is talking about who is

this Offspring who is this seed and this

Offspring this seed uh we we see that

there's this battle through

time it starts Genesis or in Genesis 4

you've got Cain and

Abel and as you move through the entire

Old Testament you see that there are

those who really follow in the line of

the serpent in the line of Satan and

they are at war with those who have put

their hope and trust in God okay that is

uh the battle that rages throughout the

scripture and here we see it painted in

clear Strokes we have on the one hand

those who worship the creature power

what we can gain in this life and it's

those who attend her herod's banquet and

then we have those who worship the

Creator which would be the disciples and

those who run to Jesus for

feeding so you can either

Feast at the banquet of death the

banquet of Herod the banquet of Satan

the banquet of this world or you Feast

on the banquet of Christ Christ the

banquet of

life and what we see here is that at

this banquet of death that Herod lays

out and we see it is a feast of power of

indulgence and of utter

cruelty to get a seat at that table it

must have been you would have had to

have been a powerful person you would

have had to Curry favor with Herod you

would have done anything to have that

seat at the table to be at that banquet

where all the leading men

of Judea would be sitting and

feasting Herod entertains the

powerful and it is a gruesome gruesome

display it is a perverted display I mean

it is the kind of banquet where a bunch

of grown drunken

men are entertained by herod's do a

stepdaughter and I will let you use your

imagination to see what kind of dance

would inter entertain a group of drunken

men powerful men at a king's

banquet we see King The King who You'

think is the most secure person you

could imagine but even he here is in his

depravity in his

corruption there's an emptiness there's

a lack of security

there the people would have sold their

souls to be at that table and Herod is

is willing to sell his soul to stay in

that position of power why does Herod

agree to kill John the

Baptist because he's made an oath to his

daughter to Pro and she has said this is

what I want he has to keep his oath if

he does not keep his oath he loses trust

and

credibility among the powerful men

ultimately his power depends on keeping

a certain appearance before those at his

table those who also have

power this kingdom is built on the Flesh

and its desires an oppressive corrupt

self-serving and fear driven

rule you I think most of us today would

probably say I would never want to sit

at that

table but I want to submit that uh for

all of us that temptation is

there for the Youth in particular or for

our young adults but I think even for

those of us uh in late young adulthood

or middle age or there's there's this

this thing there's this

temptation that CS Lewis uh he termed it

this desire for to be a part of the

inner

ring and here's what I mean by the inner

ring the inner ring it starts probably

starts when you're about 11 or 12 years

old uh and you start to see that there

are there's this one group of kids uh

they're called the popular kids

or there might be you might not have an

interest in that but there's another

there might be uh the math club or it

might be uh the volleyball team or the

football team or whatever but there is

there is this one group and you feel

like if I could just get into that group

if I could be accepted by

them then I would I know I'm okay I

would be happy I'd feel good about

myself or I'd feel secure about my place

here my

standing and so we do whatever we can to

enter that inner ring whatever that

inner ring is uh it could be that when

you've got you're in in college and

there's this uh this one group where you

know if I if I can get in with that

Professor I know that I've got a

recommendation to whatever grad school I

want to go to or you first get a job and

if okay they're the Power Players if I

can get on the good side with that

manager or this group of people I can go

places in this company and it just goes

on and on and

on even in your own family some of you

with extended families here in Houston

there might be an inner ring you feel

like that's the group of people I need

to be in with this uncle or this

grandfather or whomever there's always a

group of people you feel like I just

need to get into that that group and

somehow this group

knows that they got to put boundaries

between them and the rest of the world

or they lose their special status and

they will make you do things to become a

part of that group when I was when I I

pledged a fraternity when I was in uh

college and they made us do some things

that looking back are are were pretty

unsavory and what they're looking to do

make consciously or

unconsciously is to get you to do things

that your

conscience would tell you not to

do in order to be a part of this inner

ring you have to make compromises you

have to let go of your own values your

own your own sense of what is right and

wrong in order to Curry favor with this

group when you find yourself doing that

you are feasting at herod's banquet the

inner ring really is herod's

banquet CS Lewis when he talked about

that he was talking to a group of uh

seniors who were about to graduate from

from Oxford and he looked at them and he

said you know out of you all of you have

high hopes you have learned about

morality here and ethics but I guarantee

you within 5

years 10

years several of several of you in here

will be what we call

Scoundrels because you will allow

yourself to be corrupted in order to be

a part of the inner

ring and if your desire is to Feast at

the king's banquet at herod's ban

banquet where the powerful are where the

successful

are you will also make those compromises

and you too will find yourself

cheering the kind of corrupt depravity

that was there at herod's

banquet in contrast with that we have

the banquet of

Life verses 13- 21 it starts with The

Compassion of Jesus

and true provision Jesus feeds the

hungry in the

wilderness okay it starts with a false

perception of scarcity King King herod's

banquet has everything Jesus they just

have Five Loaves and two fish it looks

like

nothing but out of faith and trust Jesus

provides more than enough to those who

rely on him the disciples do what Jesus

said says as silly as it might have

seemed you know to take these five

loaves of bread and two fish and break

them and try to pass them out and expect

that to feed 5,000 men plus women and

children that must have seemed

ridiculous we actually tried this once

when I was an inter Varsity staff worker

at the Claremont colleges way back in

the uh mid early 1990s we had our

fellowship uh Sunday nights from 5: to

6:15 the dining hall closed at 6:30 so

we we were always careful to be done by

uh 6:15 so that people could go and get

their dinner in the dining hall it was a

residential College everyone lived in

the dorms uh one night we had a guest

speaker at our fellowship and he went

long so we finished at uh he finished at

6 uh 29 we decid we're still going to do

worship we did worship it was 6:40 and

every said all right now what do we

do we can't go eat dinner because the

dining hall is now

closed and one person

uh had brought uh his own dinner four

tacos from uh a a chain store in uh

Southern California called Del Taco and

someone actually prayed over the tacos

and we split them and tried to pass them

around uh the the the congregation and

like six people got to eat and the rest

of us had to go out

afterwards but with Jesus it's

different right it was ridiculous for us

to think that we could replicate that

because we're not Jesus there was real

scarcity Jesus's Kingdom it looks like

there's scarcity but through his power

if you trust in him there will be more

than

enough so we've got the key contrast

here okay which banquet are you feeding

at the world offers power pleasure and

Indulgence but it leads to

death Jesus offers the humblest

provision but we see that it leads to

satisfaction in

life but there's more that's going on

here to be able to see the fullness of

what's happening with these two Banquets

uh we need to see that there are

parallels here to The

Exodus if you look at uh the story of

pharaoh and Moses in Exodus Exodus

starts with the pharaoh who wants to

kill all of the Hebrew HEB Brew boys

under the age of or just as they're born

he orders The Midwives to slaughter

them because he's

afraid he's afraid of losing his power

to the

Hebrews and then God miraculously saves

one child Moses who escapes

pharaoh and then after this Pharaoh is

dead his son now takes power in Egypt

and that's when Moses is called back to

go called to go back to to to Egypt and

there there's confrontation with this

son's King who follows in the footsteps

of his father so you've got this

continuing battle between Pharaoh that's

the anus those who worship the creature

and Moses whom God has saved and he

comes sort of as a foreshadowing of the

seed who will crush the Serpent's

head then after that he is they've

escaped Egypt then they they will cross

a sea

miraculously and the people will be fed

bread in the

wilderness so you've got King who

Slaughters

infants King's son who is in conflict

with Moses after Moses had been saved

from the first

king a crossing of a sea miraculously

and a feeding in the wilderness

well what do we see in Matthew Matthew

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Chapter

2 Moses I we've got not Moses the King

Herod Slaughters all the children all

the Hebrew boys in the city of Bethlehem

but one escapes only the escap instead

of escaping from Egypt he escapes to

Egypt that King

dies his son Reigns in his

place and now Jesus return returns and

is in conflict with that

King then we see a feeding in the

wilderness in verses 12 through 20 13-

21 and in the rest of chapter 14 we see

a miraculous walking on the

sea okay the parallels are intentional

they're clear and they're

obvious Herod mares Pharaoh both ru over

God's people and murder the righteous

Jesus is the new and the greater Moses

the greater Moses that Moses prophesied

of in 18:15 uh Deuteronomy 18:15 Moses

Deuteronomy 18:15

says that God will raise up another

Prophet after me and then at the end of

Deuteronomy which was written long after

Moses's death as kind of an addendum to

Moses's uh book says that after Moses

there never arose another Prophet like

him the people were waiting for this

prophet and he is here in Jesus he is

the new Moses who leads His People Into

the Wilderness of Faith to receive new

provision so if you look at

but what you see here is more than that

what you saw in Exodus is the people

continue to Grumble they've left Egypt

they want to go back to Egypt oh if we

were in Egypt where we could eat leaks

and cucumbers and had uh meat to the

pothole they they wanted to go back into

slavery Exodus 16:3 if we have it up

Exodus 16:3

here okay and the people of Israel said

to them would that we had died by the

hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt

when we sat by the meat pots and ate

bread to the full for youve brought us

out into this Wilderness to kill this

whole assembly with

Hunger or numbers 114 through6 and the

people and now the rabble there was

among them had a strong craving and the

people of is Israel also wept again and

said oh that we had meat to eat we

remember the fish we ate in Egypt that

cost nothing the Cucumbers the melons

the leaks the onions and the garlic but

now our strength is dried up and there's

nothing at all but this Mana to look at

okay so if we look at

this you can choose the the table of

Jesus you can go to the banquet of life

and you can look and you see five fish

Five Loaves and two

fish and say this is I don't know if

this is

enough maybe that banquet with Herod the

banquet of the

world they got meat there the beer flows

freely there's

entertainment it seems so much more

thrilling and exciting than what we

have and so there's another parallel the

people in Jesus's day if we could see

that up on the board the people in

Jesus's day face the same choices the

people of

Israel trust in herod's world of power

and feasting or trust in Jesus's

Wilderness provision we have the same

Temptation today the temptation to go

back to Egypt back to our lives before

we knew Jesus back to the banquet of

evil and of death

moving on to the third point the death

of John points the powerlessness of the

old Covenant and our need for the

new we didn't do much with John's death

last week what does it represent who is

John the Baptist if you remember back in

chapter 11 Jesus

said there's never been one born of

women greater than John the Baptist

but he was least in the Kingdom of

Heaven is greater than John now Jesus

did not mean that John the Baptist is

not a believer that he's not going to be

saved he's looking at the history of

Salvation and he looks at John as

representing the old order the old

Covenant John was the greatest Under the

old Covenant was Matthew 11:11 that I

Matthew 11:11

was quoting by the way yet

he comes in

confrontation with the King he comes in

confrontation with the representative of

Satan himself and King

Herod and he is

powerless he dies at the hand of

Herod and all his disciples can do is

carry his body to be bapt carry his head

carry his body all they can do is bury

him

okay Jesus is the true

deliverer Moses led the people out of

Egypt but he could not bring them into

the promised land Jesus is the greater

Moses John prepared the way for the

Messiah but he could not establish the

kingdom only Jesus the new and greater

Moses can accomplish this

work and so we see John's disciples what

do they carry his body they carry the

death and they bury it they're burying

the end of the old order what do Jesus's

disciples carry they carry the blessings

and provision of the Kingdom they bring

life they bring the bread of life if I

can borrow a metaphor from

John so we see this truth even if if

even John the Baptist cannot bring true

salvation the nothing in the old order

the old covenant could do it no ritual

Washings no sacrifices on the altar none

of that could bring about the full and

final forgiveness of

sins no amount of religious obedience

can save us our own works and our own

righteousness are

powerless to bring an end to the kingdom

of Satan only Jesus himself through his

death and Resurrection

Jesus dies he's buried and he rises

again final

point I just want to repeat and

emphasize something I said earlier the

banquet of life looks

unimpressive but it leads to True

salvation the Mana in the wilderness I

mean just even the name they like Mana

in Exodus uh 1615 it tells us what Mana

what they called it Mana uh it's just

when the people of Israel saw it they

said to one another what is it for they

did not know what it was and Moses said

to them it is the bread that the Lord

has given you to eat that word what is

it that's Mana so that's just that's

just what Mana means what is it so

they're they can't even they don't have

a name for it it's just this coriander

seed type thing that they find on the

ground every day it looks

unimpressive the disciples have a

similar response when they look at what

they have Five Loaves and two fish and

they say it is not

enough if we could have that up just I I

want you to see it here clearly we have

only two loaves here and two Five Loaves

here and two fish it is not

enough God's provision never looks

impressive at

first the world's banquet looks glorious

but it leads to

death what does Jesus's provision look

like it looks it comes in the form of a

peasant born in a

manger as an impoverished first

century Galilean

peasant it comes in the form of a man

who is

crucified like a

criminal who is abandoned by his friends

friends whose last cry on the cross is

the Cry of the Damned who says my God my

God why have you forsaken

me this does not look

impressive Five Loaves and two fish do

not look impressive for 5,000 people

when we come in here on the first Sunday

of each month and we have that little

tiny piece of cracker and that little uh

little plastic cup of grape juice

that does not look

impressive when I first became a

Christian the guy who reached out to me

who shared the gospel to me he did not

look impressive you he was a fifth year

senior socially unskill I mean what

fifth year senior lives in the dorms

with a bunch of

freshmen he was socially nervous

socially

awkward he invited me to his Bible study

I only went because I felt sorry for him

I thought I was strong independent

uh in my delusions I thought I was kind

of cool he looked weak and uh just

insignificant and yet he's the one who

had the true life and the true power in

Jesus Christianity will never look cool

we can try to make it look cool we can

uh have bells and whistles there are

churches that their whole point is to

try to make Christianity seem cool and

hip they try to dress as pastors they

try to dress in a hip and cool way they

try to have the hippest and coolest

music that's not where we find

Jesus we find true life not in that

which is

impressive but with but in that which to

the world looks like death you know

yesterday I was driving home from

Oklahoma City it's a long drive and it

was raining there's a horrible car

accident uh what should have been a

7-hour drive took me about nine and a

half hours and while I'm on the road I'm

just flipping you know stations and I'm

contrasting a Christian music to secular

music and I just struck me

you

musically Christian music is just so bad

okay I mean it's just it's it's just the

the world's music just the production

value is so much better okay the tunes

are so much uh there's there's catch

here okay and the The Poetry of the

lyrics even that's better than a lot of

what Christian artists put together but

where is life going to be held what are

we going to listen to on Sunday morning

where do we it's not in Bruno

Mars

okay that's not where our soul is going

to be

fed our faith looks

unimpressive I think that evangelicals

represent 28% of the American population

maybe a little more than that we

represent we have maybe

uh 12% of attorneys 6% of the doct I

mean just kind of when you look at Elite

culture

you're not going to find it very often

in the Evangelical

Church we are the weak and the

despised but Paul says that's who God

calls I didn't I just thought of this

like 5 seconds ago so we don't have a

PowerPoint slide for it but 1

1 Corinthians 1:18

Corinthians chapter

1 verse

18 for the word of the Cross is folly to

those who are perishing

ing but to us who are being saved it is

the power of God for it is written I'll

destroy the wisdom of the wise and the

discernment of the Discerning I will

thwart where's the one who is wise where

is the Scribe where is the debater of

this age has not God made foolish the

wisdom of the world for since in the

wisdom of God the world did not know God

through wisdom it pleased God through

the Folly of what we preach to save

those who believe and I'm going to skip

down to verse 26 for consider your

calling Brothers not many of you were

wise according to worldly standards not

many were powerful not many were of

noble birth but God chose what is

foolish in the world to shame the wise

God chose what is weak in the world to

shame the strong God chose what is low

and despised in the world even things

that are not not to bring to nothing

things that are so that no human being

might boast in the presence of God and

because of him you are in Christ Jesus

who became to us wisdom from God

righteousness and sanctification and

Redemption so that as it is written let

the one who boasts boast in the

Lord so to summarize for today the world

offers a banquet of indulgence power

control

but it leads to

death Jesus offers a a banquet of

humility faith and provision but it

leads to eternal life and joy and

satisfaction the Israelites long for

Egypt but those who trusted God received

the promised land John's death shows

that the old Covenant can only take us

so far we need a savior in Jesus to

complete this journey for us and so I

have three points of application one

I've asked it again and again what

banquet are you feeding on are you

chasing power success Indulgence or

rejecting the humble and seemingly weak

faith in

Christ two are you trusting God's

provision do you believe that what God

has given you is

enough are you constantly in

discontentment longing for something

else

and three will you follow Jesus Into the

Wilderness into the unimpressive places

away from the huge banquet

table will you follow Jesus Into the

Wilderness and while the Israelites

struggle to be content there will you do

the same or will you embrace the

provision of Christ will you look at the

life God has given you the body God has

given you the job job God has given you

the intellect God has given

you and will you say it's not

enough or you Embrace what Christ has

given you will you embrace the life

group or small group or dgroup that you

are in and the weaknesses of the people

there will you embrace the pastors of a

church that does not hire Rockstar

Megastar million dooll a year pastors

will you Embrace a worship team that

doesn't have full-time paid

musicians will you Embrace this as the

life God has given you and say it is

good and I can be satisfied with this

because the banquet of Jesus is the

banquet of

life let's

pray father God we come to you in

weakness and in trembling

in

imperfection we come to you

not as the wise and Powerful of the

earth not as those who are in the inner

ring but as the weak the needy the lowly

born those who in the eyes of the world

are

nothing we want to come before you and

say this is where we find the banquet of

life this is where we find full

provision this is where we find the true

promised

land so help us Lord

God humble us and open our eyes that we

might see where true life and true

satisfaction is found in Jesus name we

pray amen