Matthew 22:1-14 - Responding to the Authority

Second Bible and go to Matthew chapter 22.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

We've been going through the Gospel of Matthew for a little over two years, and we're getting into the last week of the life of Jesus and his earthly ministry.

This morning we're going to be looking at the third of three parables that Jesus gives in answer to a band of religious leaders who had demanded of Jesus an answer for what he was doing in the temple complex.

Jesus was healing and teaching, and these men came to him and said, By what authority are you doing these things?

We looked at that last week.

You glance back in chapter 21, you can see the substance of that.

Jesus brought these men into a stony stalemate by asking them a question.

John the Baptist, did he come from heaven?

Or was this coming for some other reason?

And the men refused to answer that because they knew they couldn't.

There was trouble on both sides.

And so Jesus said, if you're not going to answer that question because of the insincerity of your hearts, I'm not going to answer your question.

And that brought three stinging stories, three parables that Jesus gives, one right after the other, two of them in chapter 21, and the third one we'll look at today in chapter 22.

He gave the parable of the two sons, one who was told to go into the field and work, had refused to do so, but later repented and went, and one son who said he would go, but didn't.

And then the parable of the vineyard owner who had prepared a property, had rented it out to tenant farmers, and had come to expect the fruit at the harvest time.

And these men, instead of giving the vineyard owner the fruit, decided to harass and kill the servants of that owner and to kill the son and to try to usurp the field for themselves.

Today we're going to look at the third of this, these stinging stories that Jesus gives.

There's similarities between what we'll look at today and what we looked at last week.

I separated them because at the end of the second story, Jesus gives some substantial statements of substance, where he speaks about himself as being the rejected stone that becomes the headpiece.

And we learned some other lessons as we glanced back at these two chapters.

But today we're going to look at the third of these three stinging stories that highlights the culpability of these religious leaders and their wrong responses to God's invitation.

As we look at this, we're going to be looking at a parable.

Not every detail is to be understood in its fine points, but the overall bridging story is for us.

Let's read it together, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 22.

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables.

Come to the wedding banquet.

But they paid no attention and went away, one to his own farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.

The king was enraged, and he sent out his troops and killed those murderers and burned down their city.

Then he told his servants, The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.

Go then to where the roads exit the city and invite everyone you find to the banquet.

So those servants went on the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good.

The wedding banquet was filled with guests.

Then the king came in to see the guest, and he saw a man who was not dressed for a wedding.

So he said to him, Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?

The man was speechless.

Then the king told the attendants, tie him up hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

For many are invited, but few are chosen.

First thing I want us to notice in this section of scripture, in this parable that Jesus gives, is the repeated invitations from a rejoicing royal, the repeated invitations from a rejoicing royal.

The setting here is a parable.

It's a celebration.

A king has prepared a wedding banquet for his son.

This kind of ceremony would have been a countrywide celebration.

And it probably would have lasted for several days.

I was in Jordan last June, just before the wedding of Al-Hussein bin Abdullah, who's the crown prince of Jordan, and his marriage to uh Rajwa al-Sahif took place there in a palace in Amman.

I missed it by a day.

After the wedding ceremony, the bride and the groom rode down in procession through the streets of Amman, and they reached the palace, and there they had a state banquet of 1700 people.

And the queen said about the wedding, about her son, Hussein.

She said, To our entire Jordanian family, our joy is one and the same.

She said that about the 11 million people that live in Jordan.

Hussein is your son as much as he is mine.

You are his family, and this is your celebration.

What a wonderful invite for the whole nation to feel like they were part of this wedding.

Well, this is the same sort of wedding we're reading about in this parable.

When I was in Amon, the buildings were adorned with flags and pictures of this beaming couple who were about to get married.

And on the day, people flocked into the streets, and there were large screens set out in public places where people could watch the wedding.

The Jordanians were given a two-day holiday, and the king put on free public concerts and firework displays and all sorts of things for them to rejoice together.

This is what's happening here.

It's this kind of occasion, this countrywide celebration of the king for his son.

But when we look at this parable, there's something shocking that's happened.

Not a single person has RSVP'd.

Not a single person is indicated that they would come or not come to the wedding.

Yesterday I went to a wedding planning website called thenot.com.

And I read this article.

Expect this many people to RSVP no to your wedding.

I was like, well, okay, well, how many?

And they wrote this.

They said there's no magical formula to determine exactly how many invitees will RSVP know, but it's safe to plan roughly 15% of people will decline the invitation, and more like 20 to 30% if it's a destination wedding.

Well, this king had sent out the invitations, and he didn't get 15% RSVP no, or 20 or 30% RSVP no.

He got 100% silence.

The king's son was getting married, and nobody said they would show up or not show up.

The king's son is gotten married.

And so in verse three, the king sends out servants to personally encourage the people who had been invited to come.

But nobody responds to the urgings of those servants.

They come back to the king and they come back with disappointing news.

They don't want to come.

Although one might think, well, overlooking the written invitation, well, we all do that.

I meant to answer that, right?

We've done that.

But when the servants are personally at your door and you say, I just don't want to come, what an offense that would be.

What is this king going to do?

Well, he gets other servants and he sends them back out, and he sends them back out to all the invitees again, but this time they've got the menu in their hand.

And he tells them to go and tell them the food is ready.

He's prepared prime beef.

In fact, it's A5 Wagyu.

It's fatted cattle.

And you don't have to wait for it.

It's already cooked.

You just got to come in and you can grab a plate and eat right away.

And so all the servants spread out.

They go back out again.

What do they receive?

Some responses.

Two ways of response: indifference and hostility.

Before we go any further, let's pause for a moment to kind of flesh out what Jesus is saying here.

Who are all who's the king and who's the son?

And what's the banquet?

And who are the invitees?

And who are the servants?

Well, the king is God.

The king is the central character in here.

He's the one that's doing all of these things.

He's hosting the wedding feast.

He's sending out the invitations.

He's bringing out the wave of servants and a second wave of servants.

He's the one who's had the menu planned.

He's got all of that cooked and ready.

He's opened up the banqueting hall.

He's sending out everything.

And later he sends out his troops.

In the middle of the story, we have God active.

His Son, Jesus Christ.

The wedding feast, the messianic banquet.

Come to the celebration of the Son of God.

The king's servants, all of those who've been out bringing gospel proclamation, invitations, prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, all of them crying out, Come, come, come, the feast is ready.

What are we to learn from this?

We learn something about the nature of God, that He's patiently and persistently inviting all the nation of Israel to come to the Messianic banquet.

He sent his servants again and again and again.

He sent John the Baptist, he sent his own son.

All of his servants have been calling out, come, come, come, the feast is ready.

Come enjoy the food.

Join in the celebration.

Rejoice with me.

God is patiently and persistently inviting the people to the messianic banquet.

God is gracious.

God is generous.

God is patient.

He's sending out word again and again and again.

But there's another element to this story.

Not just the repeated invitations of a rejoicing royal, but this the repugnant refusals from these renegade residents of this of the land.

We look at this parable and we're surprised, shocked by the response.

No RSVP, if the king sent you an invite to the banquet.

To go again?

And the servants come back and they say they just don't want to come.

The brevity of that shocks us.

But the brevity of that is replaced with the shock that the king would regather himself and send out another wave of servants and urge them to come.

And this last wave are sent with the very words of the king.

Take a look at what it says there.

Tell those who are invited, see, I've prepared my dinner.

My oxen and fatted cattle have been slaughtered.

Everything is ready.

Come to the wedding banquet.

They've got the very words of the king.

Out.

These are the king's words.

But they again reject the invitation.

And verses five and six give us the two basic types of rude rejection of these rebel residents.

The first one is just a busy indifference.

And the second is a violent indignation.

Verse 5, they paid no attention and went away.

One to his own farm, another to his business.

This first group paid no attention.

Paid no attention.

This is the king.

This is the wedding of the prince, the the one who'll take the throne soon.

This is an invitation that's been offered once and twice and three times.

This is an invitation that's filled with food you couldn't buy for yourself.

This is the finest affair.

This is a feast ready for eating.

The banquet hall is open.

Everything is ready.

Just come and eat.

And they paid no attention.

If somebody said to you, hey, I'll buy you a lunch at Ruth's Chris, how many of you are going to say no to that?

Some of you might go, Well, I kind of like uh another place.

I like Lori's better.

But no, you're gonna say, Thank you.

I'm gonna eat at Ruth's Chris.

This is better than any of those chain steakhouses.

This is the best.

They pay no attention.

Here we have people that Jesus talked about in another parable, the parable of the sower, where the cares of this life, their jobs, their family, their possessions are more important to them than God and his word.

Think about your average unbeliever today.

Put a name to that person.

They don't necessarily want church doors to close, they don't want preachers to be shut down, they just don't want their ears opened.

They just want to go about and do more important stuff than what you're talking about.

We live in a world today where people are so busy that they don't stop and listen to this generous invitation.

Good people doing good things, but careless about the good news of a generous and gracious God.

Preoccupied, so preoccupied that they have no thought about their soul.

It's like that rich man who had a huge harvest one day and said, Wow, look at this.

I can tear down my barns, I can build bigger, I'm gonna fill it up, I'm gonna quit work, I'm gonna take my ease, and I'm gonna say to myself, Eat, drink, be merry, enjoy the rest of your days.

And Jesus said, You fool, this night your soul's gonna be required of you.

What is the greatest response of humanity to a God filled with a gracious, generous invitation?

Indifference.

Just indifference.

But there's another group here, there's a hostile group.

Verse six, while the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.

Well, this group is anything but indifferent.

This group is out for blood.

And this these servants who have come this last time with menus in hand, they don't get to go back home.

They're dead.

They're not just ignored, they're murdered.

They seize the servants of the king, they treat them shamefully, and then they kill them.

Now, this is a parable, and this is in parables, there's always some absurd, exaggerated thing that happens, and this is it.

But is it all that absurd?

And is it all that exaggerated?

When you look at the context of what's going on here, these religious leaders who are confronting Jesus are plotting against him, trying to catch him out, are looking for ways to upset him, to bring him to trial, are conspiring about his death.

There's nothing exaggerated about this at all.

In this third parable that Jesus gives, this is where the knife goes into the third rib.

These religious leaders are these murderous rejectors.

Their monstrous behavior against these servants is one-to-one in the monstrous reaction of the Pharisees and the chief priests as they come across the son who's invited them to a wedding.

But there's a third response in this parable because the parable doesn't end with this first phase.

The parable moves into a second phase.

We'll skip some of the details for a moment, but we come to the second part of the parable where the wedding banquet is happening and it's full of people.

And now the king is coming in to mingle with the crowd and to meet them.

Take a look at verse 11.

When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who is not dressed for a wedding.

So he said to him, Friend, uh, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?

And the man was speechless.

This man is seen as somewhat of an intruder because of the way he's dressed.

What is all of this?

Well, we'll look at this in just a moment, but all the people that are in this banqueting hall that are now part of the celebration, well, they've been sort of compelled to go in.

The servants went out, another group of servants went out, and they basically said, The king wants you to come to the banquet.

And they grabbed all kinds of people, all the people that they could, and just brought them in.

They didn't wake up that day ready for a wedding.

They didn't wake up that day and sort of open up their wardrobe or open up their closets and go, I might just have to go to a wedding today.

What am I gonna wear?

I was really just gonna go down to the 7-Eleven and grab a bagel.

I'd better dress for a wedding.

I was just gonna go to LA Fitness.

Better put the gown on, might get a wedding invite.

No, these people were dressed for a regular day, they were out busy doing whatever they were doing that day, and the king's servant said, Look, buddy, we got somewhere for you to go.

You're going to a wedding today.

And so when they got to the wedding, something happened.

And this is where the dress comes in.

In the ancient world, the kings would often supply clothes to those people that they wanted to honor.

Genesis 45.

Joseph gives his brothers clothes.

He gives Benjamin more clothes.

When Naaman is asked what to do for a person the king wants to honor, he says, and Esther, have them bring a royal garment that the king himself has worn, and a horse the king himself has ridden, which has a royal crown on its head, and put the garment and the horse under the charge of one of the king's most noble officers and have them clothe the man who the king wants to honor and parade him around.

You see, what's happened here is that everybody who's been compelled from the streets has been given a new garment.

They've been given the king's garments.

The king has opened up all of his goods and he's fitted them for the occasion.

But this guest, this person, he's crashed the party.

He's thinking that what he's wearing is good enough.

I had a fun moment with that back when I worked at Grace to You.

I was serving there.

We're doing a sort of a Grace to You ministry photo, and we've got the risers there, the photographer, and everybody comes out, and we're all dressed, ready to have our picture taken.

And John MacArthur comes in, and he's, you know, he's tall.

He wouldn't be up front where Carol is, he'd be in the back where Mike and I are.

And he stands next to me, and I look at him, and he's wearing a tracksuit.

There's not one of us wearing a tracksuit, but John's wearing a tracksuit.

Well, it doesn't matter because all of us in the back, all you see is a little bit of eyeballs and hair or bald head, like I have.

And after after the photograph is taken, everybody kind of shuffles back into the building, and I'm outside.

And the only two other people that are outside are John MacArthur and Melinda MacArthur, his daughter.

And Melinda comes up to him and says, Dad, what's up with the tracksuit?

You know, we're having we're having a we're having a ministry photo here, and you're wearing a tracksuit.

And and John just goes, Uh uh, I was, I was just, I just came out of my study.

He was dressed for a comfortable spot of spending some time studying God's word, and just thought, oh man, I need to be somewhere, and just got up and went and got the photo done.

This man, however, is doing something more sinister.

He's looking around, and everybody is dressed in the king's clothes, except for him.

He's barging into the banquet, he's slurping down the caviar, he's chomping on the wagyu, he's piling his plate with the king crab legs, and the king says, Friend, he's like, Yeah, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?

Because I've I've come to honor all my guests, friend, there's a generous question.

You don't say friend unless you mean it.

And he says to them, Look, explain yourself.

Perhaps there's a good reason for this, and I'd like to hear it.

But the man doesn't say a word.

The man has refused the king's provision of the clothing, insulting the host and showing nothing but indifference and complacency and self-interest.

Because I'm dressed well enough.

Thank you very much.

I don't need your clothes.

They didn't need different clothing.

They had their own and they liked it.

But God does not accept those who think that they can enter into his presence with their own clothing.

This king had provided the feast.

This king wanted to celebrate the marriage of his son.

The invitations had gone out far and wide.

He had called everybody in, even those who were not even paying attention, the the evil and the good, no matter what they were in their in their relationship and society and their their reputation.

And he said, I'll I'll bring you in, I'll feed you, I'll honor you, I'll give you clothes of honor, join in the banquet.

And this man says, I want to eat the food, but I'm just not going to wear your clothes.

They thought they were confident in and of themselves to be where they were.

Jesus is saying, No, in this parable, that's not good enough.

Indifference, hostility, and self-righteousness will keep you out of the kingdom, will keep you out of the banquet.

Jesus said in Matthew 5, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll in no way enter into the kingdom.

They can't get in wearing their clothes, and you can't get in wearing your own clothes.

You need the clothes from the king to be accepted.

Isaiah, there's echoes of Isaiah here.

All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in the sight of God.

But in that passage we read together out of Isaiah 61, I rejoice greatly in the Lord, I exalted my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.

He's wrapped me with a robe of righteousness.

Here are people who are wearing clothes they didn't wake up to put on.

And that leads in this parable in two different places.

Not just the repeated invitations of a rejoicing royal and these repugnant refusals from rebel residents.

There's a ready retribution of a rejected king.

In the second half, the king has this man bound hand in foot and thrown into outer darkness where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

In the first half, the king takes the murderers and in his rage sends out his troops and kills the murderers and burns their city.

Again, these parables tell us something about God.

Yes, God is king.

Yes, God is a sovereign ruler.

Yes, he has a gracious, generous heart.

He's inviting people to a wedding feast, the feast of his son.

And he is patient.

He sends out his invitations time and time and time again.

He is patient beyond our ability to understand patience.

But he's also holy and he's also just and he will meet out justice to those who reject his invitation to the party.

We live in a culture that gets angry about this idea to think of a God who would meet out justice.

We hate this idea of a loving God being wrathful.

C.S.

Lewis put it this way: we don't want so much a father in heaven as we want a grandfather in heaven, a senile, toothless, benevolent soul.

But this is justice, not injustice here.

Is God unjust in this?

The people that had murdered his servants?

Like the landowner murdered the landowner's son?

No, that's justice.

It's uncomfortable, but it's true.

And Jesus gives this side of an understanding of God just as much as he's given us the other side of God's patience and generosity and welcome and interest.

The problem is not God, the problem is our understanding of God and ourselves.

Because we don't see ourselves as God sees us.

We don't understand our sin as it is.

R.

C.

Sprohl said that our sin is not just some little thing that we do, it's cosmic treachery, it's treason at the highest level.

Because we were made to glorify and to enjoy God forever.

And every time we say no, I want to do it my way.

No, I don't think that's good for me.

What I think is good for me.

We are saying to the king, I don't want your way.

I don't want your robes.

I don't want your food.

I don't want your banquet.

I don't want your feast.

I don't want to be in your presence.

And as created beings, that is cosmic treachery.

God is patiently, persistently inviting to the messianic banquet.

But there is an end to that patience and that persistence.

But I don't want to end there because there's something else to learn here.

We have these repeated invitations, we have these repugnant rejectuals and this ready retribution.

But there's also in this story some remarkable rejoicing that's going on.

It's in the background, but you can see it there.

Look at the second half of the parable.

The banqueting hall is full.

It's not empty.

It's full of people.

And they're there filling their plates with sumptuous food.

And they're clothed in the finest of garments.

Who are these people?

And how did they get here?

Well, the parable tells us who they are and how they got here.

The people are, well, they're commoners, is who they are.

They're commoners.

The wedding last year in Jordan, there were 1,700 people at the state banquet.

There were not 11 million at the banquet.

There were 1,700 people at the banquet.

The dignitaries, the state officials, the kings and queens and princes of the lands around the world were there.

But not your average Jordanian.

The rest of Jordan, they got a couple days off.

They got a free concert.

They got a firework display, and they had some big screens that were put out, and they got to maybe see the procession go down the streets of Amman, but they weren't in the banqueting hall.

These original, these people that are here, they had never been given an invitation.

They had never had that looking at them with the menu.

They got up that morning and they were just going to go to work, or they were just going to go visit a friend, or they were just going to go to a shop, or they were just going to enjoy some recreation.

They just got up that day to go about their business.

But their day was radically changed.

They were brought into the banqueting house of the king.

They were given a plate and told to eat the food.

They were brought into a dressing room and saying, Take your clothes off and wear these instead.

And they were ushered out to the sound of music and laughter and joy as they looked at the platform and saw there the prince and his bride.

And they got to be there.

And the king comes around and says, How are you today?

Are you enjoying my food?

What do you think of this day?

And they're like, Boy, it's a lot different than I expected.

The imagery here is of this king urgently calling people to come from everywhere and to come to his banquet.

And yes, in the telling of the story, the king looks a little desperate, doesn't he?

But it's an extravagance of generosity that's here, not desperation.

He wants to display his generous extravagance to these people.

And in John the Baptist, in the invitations into the kingdom of heaven, there were tax collectors and prostitutes who repented and listened to John the Baptist.

And when Jesus came, he touched those who were sick and blind and broken, and he made them whole, and they were tax collectors, and they were sinners.

And he calls them into the banqueting hall.

And at the end of Matthew's gospel, Jesus will say, Go to all the nations of the world.

Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them everything that I've commanded you.

And I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

People who just got up to go about a regular day found that their whole, whole world had been changed.

Carol sat there and told us exactly that, didn't she?

She got up one day full of anger and bitterness and hatred, despising a God who would let these bad things happen to her.

And by the end of the day, she is shocked to say to herself, I am a daughter of the king of heaven.

I'm forgiven.

And I don't wear my own clothes anymore, I wear his.

And I don't feast on the food that I produce for myself, I feast on the riches of his grace.

These guests woke up that day without any thought of participating in the wedding.

And the servants compelled them to come in.

Why were they there?

They were called, they were compelled, and they were chosen, and they were clothed.

That's why they were there.

This wedding feast was going to happen.

The king would have his celebration.

And if he would call and call and call again to indifferent, hostile, self-righteous people.

And if they said, no, no, no, the king was going to find people to rejoice with.

The party's going to go on, but you won't be there.

The celebration is going to happen because this king is going to have a feast.

This king is going to have a wedding.

This king is going to have a party.

This king is going to have a full banqueting hall.

And look at us.

Look at us.

From all around the world, we're here.

And as children of God in Christ Jesus, we woke up one day to find out that God had something a whole lot different for us than to simply go to work or simply meet a friend or simply go to the gym or simply shop at a store.

He woke us up so that we could eat the finest of foods and wear the best clothes and rejoice in the greatest wedding, the marriage supper of the Lamb.

And this king has clothed us all with the same garments.

And whether we're poor or rich, we don't have to walk into the banqueting hall embarrassed by our threadbare clothing or to walk around in pride at the extravagance of the expense of our wardrobe.

We wear the same clothes.

We all are there with equal footing, because there's no place for embarrassment or pride in the feast of the kingdom.

As Paul said, through faith you're all children of God in Christ.

Those you that are baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.

There's no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female.

You're all one in Christ Jesus, every one of us.

Revelation 7.

I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, and they were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and they cry out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb.

Before we close, are you in the banqueting hall?

Are you feasting on the riches of the king?

Have you been clothed with his clothing?

Don't be indifferent.

Don't be hostile.

And don't be self-righteous.

Listen to the invitation.

It calls out to all.

Heed the call.

The bride and the spirit say, Come.

Listen to this song.

Come to the table he's prepared for you.

The bread of forgiveness and the wine of release.

Come to the table and sit down beside him.

The Savior wants you to join in the feast.

Come to the table and see in his eyes the love that the Father has spoken, and know that you're welcome, no matter your crime, though every commandment you've broken.

For he's come to love you and not to condemn.

For he offers a pardon of peace.

If you'll come to the table, you'll feel in your heart the greatest forgiveness, the greatest release.

Just come.

Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father, we don't deserve to be at this banquet.

We don't deserve to be at the table you've prepared, to eat the bread of forgiveness and the wine of release.

To sit down beside you, to join in this feast, to look into your eyes and see love.

And to know that we're welcome, whatever our crime.

But what dangerous place it is for those who are indifferent, to those who are hostile, to those who think that they're good enough to be in.

Oh Father, awaken them, we pray.

Awaken them to the realization that there is something to pay attention to, and it's you.

That there's no reason to be hostile to a God who offers such fare, and he'll clothe you with finer clothes than you could ever put on yourself.

Awaken them, Father, we pray.

And Lord, may Christ be glorified in it all.

And we ask this in his name.

Amen.