People of Grace: God's Mission and My Purpose - May 25, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

This morning, I want you to hear from the word, from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 22.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

And it's kind of a lengthy passage. So if you'd like to stand, you're welcome to.

If you'd rather sit, it's up to you as well. But I want you to hear the word

of the Lord this morning, the parable of the wedding banquet.

Jesus spoke to them again in parables saying, the kingdom of heaven is like

a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.

He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them

to come, but they refused to come.

Then he sent some more servants and said, Tell those who have been invited that

I have prepared my dinner.

My oxen and fatted calf have been butchered, and everything is ready.

Come to the wedding banquet. But they paid no attention and went off,

one to his fill, another to his business.

The rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.

The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Then he said to his servants, the wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.

So go to the street corners and invite them to the banquet, anyone that you can find.

So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could

find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came to see the guests, he noticed a man who was there not

wearing his wedding clothes.

He asked, Howard, did you get in here without wedding clothes,

friend. The man was speechless.

Then the king told the attendants, tie him hand and foot and throw him outside

into darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

For many are invited, but few are chosen.

May God bless the reading of his word to your life today. Praise be to God.

We think about the Bible. We think about the Word of God. It was interesting,

and I wish I had them to share with you, but our district Sunday school superintendent,

they call him something different now.

I think NDI president is the official title.

He had some statistics on the very big screen at College Church,

which talked about biblical literacy.

Biblical literacy is how well do people know the Bible these days?

And it's interesting that at the beginning of our nation, the Holy Bible was

used as a textbook in the public schools.

And so we talk about going from people knowing about the Bible,

knowing what was in the Bible, the content of it.

Knowing the different kinds of language that are used in the Bible,

allegories, parables, similes.

I mean, you just read through the Bible and just straightforward history,

and you can see what made our nation great, I believe, part of the foundation

of what made the United States great.

And we think about where we have come since then, and I'm not going to get on

a political tirade or anything, don't worry. I know shucks, right?

I mean, if there's any day I could get away with it, it's Memorial Day weekend probably.

But we think about what people miss when they don't understand the Bible. Boy, they miss so much.

There's so much. When you think just at the very beginning, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2,

how we see a God that creates just by speaking, by the very act of speaking

His will. And it happens.

We see Him, the Bible just explode with this Creator God who creates this wonderful

universe, this wonderful world, this wonderful garden.

And within this garden, He places a unique species of.

People right there. Amongst all the various kinds and species of animals,

there's a man that is there.

And this man is, of course, alone. And then God creates him a helpmate,

creates a woman to be equal to him, and gives both of them the charge to take

care of all of this creation that they've been entrusted with.

And what a powerful beginning to this story.

We see how God has spoken everything into existence and has this great dream

for humanity, for people like you and me,

like Adam and like Eve, to walk in this fellowship with God with nothing in

between them, unencumbered access to the living and the mighty God.

Wow, what an incredible relationship.

But it's not too long into that same book that we see in Genesis chapter 3,

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

that that big dream is shattered like a big plate glass window.

Shards everywhere. The beautiful creation, the beautiful relationship that people

were to have with God, with their creator, is just shattered.

Shattered so much that even Adam and Eve, they run and hide,

thinking they could get away from the one who created him, the one who sees

all, the one who knows all.

They notice their nakedness and try to fashion themselves clothing out of some fig leaves.

And we see in the rest of the Bible, God's grace reaching down toward these

same people and the offspring of these people, us even.

The rest of the Bible is tasked with seeing God's dream restored,

unencumbered access with his creation.

We see the lengths that God goes to to bring about that.

Incredible relationship when we see that he sends his only one of a kind,

his only begotten son to make amends, to span the gap between us and between

God, between heaven and earth, as it were.

We see the power of the scripture.

And we know today there's whole generations of people that are missing out on

this great redemption story, as it has been said before, the greatest story

ever told, the greatest story that is our story.

And I want to share with you today, as we've read the book of Matthew,

this gospel story, this parable that Jesus gives of a great wedding banquet.

That quite frankly, I don't think any of us were invited to originally.

But as the story unfolds, we see how God lays out that invitation.

And as we even go through the scripture, we can see how God laid out this invitation,

from Genesis all the way to the book of Revelation.

We can see, first of all, this morning, that God invited Abraham and Sarah to

be part of his mission. You see, here's the neat thing.

We've been talking about grace.

We'll continue to talk about grace through the end of June next month.

But if we've been recipients of God's amazing grace, again, that undeserved

favor that comes from God,

that takes or that shows itself in forgiveness, that shows itself in the empowerment

to do His will, that shows itself in relationship with God and with others.

If we really let us or let that impact us, then there's a transformation that takes place.

And not just a transformation within a spiritual transformation,

but it's something that works itself in the human heart, but then can't stay locked up there.

And it has to get out. And what I want to say is if we've received the grace

of God, we cannot help but share that grace with other people to share not just

the story, but the reality that there is a God that loves others.

And that nothing's going to get in God's way from pursuing us and sharing that

grace with all human beings.

And Abraham and Sarah were part of that too.

Listen from all the way back in the book of Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Listen to how this first unfolded with Abraham and Sarah.

And here you'll see their names, Abram and Sarai. And as we think about this, listen to this.

Genesis 12.1. The Lord said to Abram, go from your country, your people,

your father's household to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name

great and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you.

And whoever curses you, I will curse.

All people, all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

What a calling. What an invitation.

Here was God showing some grace, some favor toward this man,

Abram, and his wife, Sarah.

We think about how God chose them, said, if you'll do this, if you'll follow

me, I'm going to make you a blessing to everybody.

And don't worry, I'm going to protect you too. If someone tries to curse you,

I'm going to curse them. In essence, telling Abram, I've got your back.

Don't worry, you just follow me and look forward.

Don't worry about what happens behind you. I'm going to take care of you.

We see later on in Genesis that God enters into this covenant.

I mean, right here, especially in verse 2 and 3. But when you consider the great

covenant that God made with Abraham, that if he committed himself to be faithful

and he continued in that, that this covenant, this great covenant would unfold with his descendants.

We know that God fulfilled his promise to Abraham and Sarah by giving them a son.

Not by the means of Abraham's choosing But by the means of God's choosing And

we see when Abraham trusted God That in this demand.

That would follow, that Abraham was still going to be faithful when God asked

Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, and take him to the mountain to sacrifice him.

That Abraham remained faithful to God, and Abraham held out hope that there

would be a sacrifice provided, and God spared Isaac's life so that the promise,

the covenant, would continue that God made with him.

We see God coming through in his call.

Abraham, Sarah, if you'll follow me, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to bless others.

That's God's grace unfurled in a time and in a place where the world needed God's grace.

When you go on through the Bible, you can see, especially in the Old Testament,

that God invited the prophets to join him in his mission.

Again, what is this mission that Abraham and Sarah were invited to?

And what is the mission that the prophets were called to, hey,

come along and follow me?

Well, I think it's this mission over here that's on our wall.

To seek and save those who are lost, that which is lost. To continue in the

mission of Jesus Christ.

But it's interesting here, when we think about the various prophets,

they each had like a puzzle piece.

I'm not very good at puzzles. My wife loves them. She's not in here so I can

say anything, right? She's working in the nursery today, but I always like to

sneak one puzzle piece and just hold it.

I know I'm not very nice sometimes, but I love that part. Well,

where's the missing piece?

We've got the whole puzzle done except one, one little piece that's missing.

Of course, I don't hold out for long, give it to her, and she's able to complete that.

You just got to test one another. Iron sharpens iron, right?

The scripture says, especially in the marriage relationship.

She's going to watch this replay, and I'm going to pay for that.

When we think about the prophets, though, they each gave a puzzle piece to who

the Messiah was going to be, to the promised one.

From Isaiah, when we think about the different puzzle pieces we got from the

prophet Isaiah, he offered this detail that the Messiah would come from the lineage of King David.

When you think about Isaiah 11.10, when we think about Isaiah 9.6 and Isaiah

7.14, that he would be born of a virgin.

We think about Isaiah 7.14 again, that he will be called Emmanuel, God with us.

Talk about the restoration of that relationship. You can't beat that name.

There's something about that name. We think about what else Isaiah said,

that his rule would bring justice and righteousness.

Boy, this is just Isaiah, just one of the prophets giving us a hint as to who

the Messiah would be. that he would bring a great light into the world,

and that he would be mighty to save.

Oh, how precious that verse is. Isaiah 63, 1.

That the Messiah would save us, bring about our salvation.

And it just didn't stop with Isaiah, one of the great prophets.

We also think about Jeremiah, who spoke of a time when the Holy Spirit of God

would not just be with believers, but would dwell within them.

That in Jeremiah 31, 31, that God will make a new covenant with his people,

and that this covenant would be different from the Ten Commandments,

and really that God would put the law in the believers' minds and write it on their hearts.

You don't need tablets of stone any longer.

We see that the Holy Spirit, that God would be the believers' God and that they will be his people.

Talk about identity and talk about ownership there.

God loves us so much, he calls us his. We think about the prophet Ezekiel,

who spoke of an incredible promise when we think about Ezekiel 36, verses 25 through 28.

Ezekiel 36:25–28

In that passage, it says, God will sprinkle clean water on the believers,

make them spiritually clean.

Oh, I like that. That God will give believers a new heart and put within them a new spirit.

That God will put his spirit in believers and work within them to help them

follow his decrees, and that we will be his people.

And again, he will be our God.

But don't forget about the prophet Joel, as we've talked about Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

We can't help but think about Joel when the prophet Joel saw the day of the

Lord coming, and with it, incredible blessing, that God will pour out his Spirit on all believers.

Joel 2.28, that sons and the daughters would prophesy, that old men will dream

dreams, and that young men will

see visions, that God will pour out his Spirit on all of his servants.

Talk about all these puzzle pieces coming together of who the Messiah will be

and what he will bring to all people everywhere to help restore the fractured

relationship that human beings have with their creator, God.

And the prophets gave these signs, gave these prophecies.

And we know later on that God sent his son, Jesus, to plainly declare what his

mission was all about, what his mission would be.

Not long ago, we talked about John chapter 4, Jesus' encounter there with the

John 4 · chapter mention

Samaritan woman at the well.

And we see in that, that one of the things that Jesus said in that passage.

Jesus told his disciples after they found him talking to a Samaritan woman.

I mean, talk about a social taboo. There's a few going on there.

His disciples were taken aback.

Jesus, what are you doing?

But Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman and to his disciples.

He said, my food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.

More than physical provisions for his body, Jesus hungered to do the will of

God. That was his desire.

That's what he wanted so innately, so deeply.

And Jesus was on mission to complete the assignment of his father to come and

to live the holy life, the life above the fray of sin, the life without sin,

and that they give up that same life as a sacrifice for all human beings up

to that point and then beyond. Praise God.

The mission was exactly what Jesus said, to seek and to save that which is lost.

And aren't you glad about that this morning?

That God just didn't leave you hanging and say, oh, you're on your own,

buddy. You're not of the right race.

You're not of the right socioeconomic class.

You're not part of the same or the right group. But Jesus laid it all out there for anyone.

Whosoever will may come, just come.

When we think about how Jesus illustrated that mission, we talked about him

meeting the Samaritan woman. And Jesus went beyond social barriers to make sure

that he could share the good news of who the Messiah was and that he was there for everyone.

We talked to the woman at the well, the part Jewish, part Gentile woman.

I mean, Jesus, like I said, even surprised his own disciples.

Jesus, what are you doing talking to a woman alone? And not only that,

she's a Samaritan. They were taken aback.

They had their own social prejudice.

But Jesus compared God's mission to harvesting a crop.

Now, I know maybe the timing's not right to talk about harvesting because stuff's

just going in the ground right now, but keeping the long goal in mind,

that why are the farmers working so hard right now?

Why have they been since probably February?

Because there's a payday coming, not just with the money, but with the crops

and the pride in the work and seeing people fed.

And I mean, we think about all this, Jesus compared this.

The farmers have the ability themselves to determine when the crop is ready to be harvested.

I talked to Les Laux not long ago. He let me ride in his tractor as he was planting

seed for about 10 minutes till the tractor broke.

And we're just talking about, how do you know when the right time is the right time?

And he talked a little bit about science, and then he talked about,

there's just a gut feeling sometimes that you know when you've done this for a while.

Farmers have the ability to know when the crops are ready.

Sometimes it's just common sense. You see that they're ready.

You see the fruit is ripe.

Jesus made spiritual application to this imagery, comparing the crops of grain

to needy souls, that they need to hear of God's forgiveness,

that they need that restored relationship with their heavenly father,

that they need eternal life.

And so Jesus reminds his disciples that God's mission includes both those who sow and those who reap.

There's some that are going to work their tails off, getting that ground ready to put the seed in.

There's going to be those that work to irrigate, those that water it,

those that fertilize, those that nurture the new seedlings that come up.

It's all the same process of seeing people come to God.

And I see my wife staring at me through the door right now. I must have said something wrong.

The Holy Spirit uses our spouses. Did you know that? Or maybe she's telling

me, hurry up. I'm in the nursery with children.

Could very well be. Now she's throwing me off. Look at that.

We think about God's mission, it's to sow, it's to reap, it's to have this harvest,

to see people come in to God's kingdom.

But if I turn our attention back in a few more minutes that I have with you,

that's just a quick overview of the mission that God has for us to continue

what Jesus enables us to do, set out for us to do.

And I want to tell you that if God invited Abraham and Sarah to be part of this

great mission, he invited the prophets

to be part of it. Jesus came to illustrate, to show us what it meant.

I've got to tell you that he wants us to be part of this mission now,

that he's asking you to join, not just some guy that answered God's call to

become a preacher, not just the clergy, but he's called all of us.

You were some of the ones he called to this banquet.

Did you catch that as we read through it, or did you hear it?

He went out and found some of the good and some of the bad.

Him, come on in. I got a place for you at this great wedding banquet.

You see, what had happened is many of the Jewish religious leaders rejected God's invitation.

The religious people, we might think in terms of today, the churchy folks,

the ones who do the right things, say the right things, pay their 10%,

have their reserve seat in the sanctuary.

I'm not preaching about that today, don't worry, but there is an alt. No.

The religious folks rejected the Messiah in spite of being clear from the word

the prophets gave that this is what the Messiah would do.

This is who the Messiah would be. They rejected that.

We know from verse 8 in this parable that God was not going to cancel this event.

God wasn't going to cancel the wedding just because those who were invited,

did not want to come. And really, they didn't want to come.

Do you hear some of the excuses they gave? Well, they didn't really give excuses.

They just didn't show up.

God says, the father says, hey, it's ready. It says in verse five, they paid no attention.

Huh. Well, I got an invitation here to a wedding. Yeah, we got something planned.

But it's the king that's given the wedding. Yeah, I got stuff to do that day.

Said one went to his field, another to his business, but it says the rest seized

the servants that were making this great invitation to others.

And we think about the servants, how the prophets were treated when they brought

the good news of God to others.

Prophets, when they came in, their whole life was an illustration of a repaired

relationship between God and human beings everywhere, and how they rejected those messages.

Think about our purpose today.

It's not only to be the ones that came to the wedding, but then to go out even,

find others to come to the wedding.

Say, hey, you're invited. You're invited. Come on.

Not just come to church with me, although I think that's a good invitation,

but come and meet the king.

Let me show you how to have a relationship with the king, the king of kings, the Lord of lords.

Come in, come and be a part, this great kingdom. But did you catch something

here? And I'll wrap this up.

There's one guy that snuck in, and it's one of those difficult things to think about.

Here he comes in and the king sees one guy, even though he was invited to come,

he's kind of singled out because there's something different about him. Well, what was that?

Not have the wedding clothes on. When we think about this and we delve into

it, it's a much larger teaching than what I can give right now.

All the wedding guests were expected to have a certain attire,

usually that the king or the one providing this banquet would give them. Here, wear these.

Someday, if you ever come over, I got to show you some old pictures about how I used to dress.

I'm so grateful I married my wife. I'm not talking I'm high fashion or anything,

but she kind of taught me how to match clothes a little better.

I've got this one senior picture. I don't even remember taking it,

but it'll give you a good laugh someday.

But you have to have the same clothes on, the clothes that the king gave you.

We think about this in respect to who the king represents in the story, God the Father.

We're supposed to wear the clothes that God has given us.

They're not physical clothes, not a suit and a tie, although I love that,

not just cutoffs and a t-shirt, but we're to clothe ourselves with the righteousness that Christ gives us.

If we're going to be part of this wedding banquet, those are the wedding clothes we're talking about.

Not coming to him with our filthy rags and saying, hey, I'm here for the party. Where's the cake?

No, to clothe ourselves with the righteousness of Christ, to claim what Christ

has done for us, and to say, yeah, I'm willing to wear that.

Why did that guest get treated so harshly?

He did not put on the wedding clothes. He did not put on the righteousness of Christ.

We don't trust in ourself to save ourself. That's what we talked about last week.

There's nothing we can do to save ourself. It's God's grace that comes along.

God's undeserved favor toward us, the gift that is held out to us.

If there's any work in it at all. It's just taking the gift and opening it up

and just accepting what Christ has given to us.

Those brand new clothes of Christ's righteousness, being right with God that

comes because of what Jesus Christ did on a cross.

And folks, we've got to be, we've got to be dressed appropriately.

Again, I'm not talking about what you're wearing today because y'all look good.

I'm talking about when we come before the throne of grace, What has changed

and transformed in our life?

Because we've trusted what Jesus has done for us.

Hey, there's going to be things that we all have in common that we do.

And it's an outgrowth of what Christ did within our hearts, what he did within us.

We're supposed to go out and we're supposed to share that with others.

So I can guarantee you, I don't know everyone's background in here,

but some of y'all were pretty much some big stinkers in the past.

Some of you were like the scripture says, some of you were the bad,

the good, bad, and the ugly, right?

Well, I wasn't making it personal now because some of you were good.

You tried to do good the best you could.

Maybe one of these little kids that, like our kids, you grew up in church,

but there was still something.

You still didn't have the clothes that Jesus wanted you to wear.

Everything you brought, everything you tried to wear was like filthy rags.

But because you came to Christ, Christ transformed you.

He wants us to go out and to find the people that were like us.

Maybe some of us religious in our own mind.

Maybe some of us just not caring anything about God, but he beckons us now to

go, to go out to the highways and the byways, bring them in.

You see, one day there's going to be a great wedding banquet,

a great and incredible wedding banquet.

Man, we want everyone to be there. We don't want anyone to miss out.

Hey, the righteous clothes will be provided for free. They've already been paid for.

And you know what? We just need to go and we need to make sure we tell everyone about that.

We're going to sing one more song as we close.

But as we do that, I just want you to consider from the very first time that

the relationship with humanity was restored, God had already had a plan,

a plan of redemption in mind for those who walked away from him.

And from the day we were created and until this very day, God has always had

a mission for us to live in a vital relationship with him, every single one of us.

And God invites us to participate with him on the same mission.

And I just want to know today, church, would you join him in that?

Just how God has made you. You don't got to be a preacher like me.

Just be yourself and just take that invitation and share it with others.

As we sing this next song, I just pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to you in that.

Maybe he'll even give you some marching orders this week to go out into the

highways and byways and bring them in.

God bless you. Let's sing, actually.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon as well as other sermons and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.