A Welcoming Table

Awesome.

Well, um, I hope one, I hope some of y'all filled those cards out and and the Lord was uh maybe calling you and telling you that that might be term time for you to to maybe step in and start serving in Kids Grove, especially if you have some some kids who are in Kids Grove and maybe even giving back in that way.

Um but even if you didn't get a chance to fill out a card, I know Katie would still love to have a conversation with you, maybe even um through this message or over the next few weeks as we lead up to three services.

Um if you feel led to start serving in Kids Grove, we will never say no to you, okay?

It's never too late, never too late.

Um, but my name is Jonah Faulkner.

I'm excited about this morning.

We're finally uh done with Moses.

Um Moses was great, his story is great, but we are um moving on to something new, uh, a new series called The Table.

Um but before we get there, I do want to celebrate and just kind of bring the light that school is officially uh back in session, first full week, um, done.

That was that had to have been parents that just wooed over there.

Um because you know, most kids right now, this is probably on the the worst times of the year.

Um but then parents are excited, right?

Your kids are back, teachers, you know, kind of maybe mix emotions there, but uh uh but you know, the the new school year it brings uh so many things along with it.

I know for me, uh even now as a student pastor, the new school year almost feels like a more of a new year than new year's, if that makes sense.

Uh there's just so many different things that go with it.

I remember growing up there would be some exciting things about going back to school.

Uh I remember uh I always got kind of a new pair of shoes or something before I went back to school, um, but my parents would never let me wear them until school started.

So as a result, I was excited for school to start so I could wear my new shoes, but you know, past that, there wasn't, you know, a ton of exciting things.

But uh, you know, like I said, there's some good things and exciting things about starting school, and then there's some really nervous things about going back to school.

So, regardless of what age you are, I want everyone to go back in time, however far you got to go.

That's none of my business, but I want you to go back in time to maybe what it was like to go back to school for the first time.

And you got the feeling of meeting all your teachers and and new classmates, and again, you know, some exciting parts of the new day and the new school year.

But then um lunchtime comes around.

And I don't know about you, but that first lunch, first day of lunch after coming back to school, was by far the most nerve-wracking part of the whole back to school experience.

Because there you are, you got your you got your food or or your lunchbox, whichever one, and you're just looking at all these tables, all these kids.

I know for me in high school, you never knew who was gonna be in the lunchroom because we had four or five different lunches, so you never even knew who was gonna be in there, much less if you had any friends in there or not.

But there you are in the lunchroom with with your food, and you're just scanning the tables, right?

You see all the different tables.

You you got the you got the table with all the the athletes or the cool kids, and then you got the table with with not the athletes, and um you got all these different all these different categories, but you're just walking through the lunchroom, and all you want to hear, all you want to hear is someone yell your name out and say, hey, come sit here.

There's a seat, there's a seat right here for you.

All you want to hear is someone call you over to sit with them, to share um that meal, enjoy um lunch with them, probably for the rest of the semester or the school year, but all you're looking for is a table to sit at and a place to belong.

And as I look back over my years of school, I have I have good memories of of of that and seeing friends and and them welcoming me over to to sit with them or me calling seeing a friend walking doing the same thing and calling them over and that just that sense of relief.

And then I have memories of of not experiencing that and not necessarily experiencing um feeling welcomed at the to the lunch table or or wherever it may be.

But um if I'm being honest, this this feeling that and that anxiety that can kind of come with something like that has not uh I haven't fully left that behind probably even today that um any sort of social event I go to, um, no one knows more than my wife how anxious I get about social events.

And and I know it it might sound weird, but um I really don't like I don't like going into large crowds, especially when I don't know who's gonna be there.

Um my worst nightmare is going to a wedding that doesn't have a seating chart.

Literally, that is my worst.

It's my worst nightmare if I like that's one of the questions I try to find out when I when I get invited to a wedding the whole day, I'm just trying to figure out if they have um a seating chart because my worst nightmare is literally walking through a room of people looking for somewhere to sit and not knowing who I'm gonna sit with.

And marriage is great because at the very least, you know, me and Reese were in it together, um, and that's that's been a blessing.

But um, regardless of you know the situation you find yourselves in, oftentimes we are asking ourselves, do I belong here?

And is there a seat for me at the table?

Do I belong here and is there a seat for me at the table?

We all want this place to belong.

Um we want to feel like we belong in the the community, the space, the the location, whatever it may be, we want we want a place to belong.

And the truth is is that uh we we just we simply live in a world where exclusion can can feel like the normal, um, and maybe even the the expectation that that we're gonna be excluded from whatever it is um that we're going to.

And and again, some of you might have felt like you belong in the runt lunchroom or you've never been told you know you you can't sit here or anything like that, but that's not true for everybody.

Um oftentimes the invitation to belong is is only for the few, and it's dependent on uh our background or our performance or our beliefs, our appearance, all these different things.

And and while it's easy to maybe look at you know our schools or social events, the the culture we live in, and and see this this kind of culture of exclusion, um, the the sad reality is we can see that and even experience that in within the church.

Um you know, even as we go to a church and we have this desire to belong, we can still feel this tension of and this feeling of I just don't think I belong here.

I don't think I fit in here.

Um the church can mirror culture and sometimes give the impression, whether we mean to or not, that people need to clean up before they show up here, that they have to behave and then believe, and then maybe, um, just maybe they'll be allowed to belong here.

And religion will try to get people to wrongly believe that you have to jump through all these different hoops to be welcomed and in by God and please God, much less God's people.

And I've heard, you know, heard stories and and even experienced a little bit of it growing up, not anything that I would has necessarily scarred me from the church, but have heard plenty of stories of people showing up to a church not dressed like everyone else, and immediately judged and whether maybe even told that they got to go home and change, or, or even just within uh the entire morning, just they felt unwelcome because of the clothes that they were wearing, or or people who um have belonged to different political parties that weren't included in the fellowship because they didn't fit in, and and maybe even people who are just who are just different and and unique and and they feel omitted and um excluded from the body of Christ.

Religion will push people away from being included, but the whole point of the series is to show that that is just not the way of Jesus.

And our desire as a church is that we would never we would never live in that way either, but we would we would love people the way Jesus loved people, we would welcome people the way Jesus welcomed people.

So our big idea for this morning, again, as we start this new series called The Table, is that Jesus sets a bigger table and invites us to add more chairs.

Jesus sets a bigger table and he invites us to add more chairs.

So I'm gonna pray for us and then we're gonna um dive right in.

Father, we are grateful for the gospel.

Uh we're grateful for for life and um salvation in Christ.

We're thankful for the Holy Spirit that brings unity um within the church, and our prayer uh is that we would just become more unified.

Um, God, that we would look more and more like Jesus every single day that we wake up.

Um, God, that we would live in a way um like Jesus, that we would love people like Jesus loved, welcome people like Jesus welcomed, minister to people like Jesus did.

Um so would you just speak to us through your word um through this story and scripture we're about to read?

And would you use us as a church just to bring um and add more tables or more chairs to um the table and more souls to your kingdom?

We love you, pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So again, this morning we're beginning this new series called The Table, and this is um it's five weeks focused on community and really this urgent need to create this place of belonging.

Where when people walk in the doors of this church or or they they walk into a community group, they feel like they belong there, that they're not excluded, but they're a part of the body of Christ.

So each week we're gonna look at a different story from the book of Luke, um, where Jesus is eating around a table.

So the the table comes from the fact all of these stories have one common thing, and it's and it's stories of Jesus sharing a meal with someone and sitting around a table with someone.

This is what Robert Karas says in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is either going to a meal at a meal or coming from a meal.

And if you if you go through and look and you you compare Luke to the other gospels, for some reason, Luke is is so fixated on Jesus' meal time and and how he uses that time and the conversations and um the things that happen with Jesus around a table.

So I think it's wise for us to look into that a little bit.

And that's what this series is all about.

So in each of these stories, we're gonna see an essential part of community and why it's necessary in our lives.

And before we, you know, keep going through the series, the uh we're we're gonna kind of just lay out the the whole purpose of this is so that as a church, we will live in community with one another.

Um there, you know, we we say all the time, it you know, typically in the world, it's not a good thing, but but we we do have an agenda for for the people in in this church.

We we have an agenda, one for people to become more like Christ, but even in this series, we want you to live in community, understanding that community, um, and and and specifically maybe even community groups within the the context of our church, but that is that's the arm of discipleship to Jesus in the life of our church is community groups.

And we we love Sunday mornings.

Incredible things happen during this time and in this space every single week.

It's it's something I look forward to, gathering all together and worshiping the Lord.

But but Sunday mornings is not, it's not everything.

It can't encompass all we are supposed to be as a church and all we are supposed to be as disciples of Jesus.

And that's why community groups are so important.

So we don't want to surprise anyone at the end of this message or this series.

Our goal and our desire is that everyone would be a part of a community group and feel like you belong to someone and a group of people within this body of Christ.

Um again, but kind of back to this morning.

This morning we are going to be in Luke 5.

Uh, if you want to go ahead and turn there, verses 27 uh through 31 or uh 32, I can't quite remember.

32.

So we'll be in Luke 5 um starting in verse 27.

But the context of this is um Jesus has really just begun his ministry, so people are quickly starting to learn who Jesus is, but at the same time, no one really knows who he is or what he's about or what his mission and message really is all about.

But leading up to this, he's he's dramatically called some of his first disciples to come and follow him, um, Peter and his brother uh Andrew and James and John.

He's healed a man from leprosy by touching him, which was a huge no-no in back in their time.

He didn't touch anyone who had leprosy, but Jesus stooped down and touched this man, brought healing to his soul.

He healed and forgave a man who was paralyzed, um, and that caused a whole big scene again because all the religious leaders are who is this guy who can forgive sins?

Um, and then immediately after this, Jesus walks by a tax booth, and this is where we pick up the story this morning.

I'm gonna read it all together, um, and then we'll kind of come back piece by piece.

So in verse 27, after this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office.

He said to him, Follow me.

So leaving everything behind, he got up and began to follow him.

Then Levi hosted a grand banquet for him at his house.

Now there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining at table with them.

But the Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

Jesus replied to them, It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick.

I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

So going back to those first couple verses, I want to start in the beginning where Jesus goes out, says he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office and said to him, Follow me.

So leaving everything behind, Levi got up and began to follow Jesus.

And it's really important that we don't skip over this part of the passage, because this is where we begin to see Jesus' heart for really all of humanity.

But Jesus sees Levi, um, who we also know as Matthew.

Uh, we see the same story in the Gospel of Matthew.

So evidently there was there, I mean, Levi and Matthew are the same person.

So if I say one of those two names, I'm talking about the same guy, okay?

Because there's a there's a good chance I will I will kind of um go back and forth.

But Jesus sees Levi, this tax collector sitting in his tax booth, and it's incredibly important that we realize Jesus doesn't ignore him, he doesn't keep walking past him, he doesn't judge him, he doesn't condemn him, he doesn't um ridicule him like all the other Jewish people would have done to this man, but instead he sees him and he calls him.

And again, it's important to understand that that really not any Jew, especially not any religious leader, would have taken any time out of their day to have a conversation with Levi.

There's there's no way.

If if anyone's ever watching um The Chosen, I I think, you know, I I will never tell someone to substitute the chosen for for your Bible, but I do think it's it's it's cool to see how Lori can use people's creativity.

But if you watch that show, it does paint a really good picture of how despised tax collectors were.

Everyone, really everyone hated them.

The Jews hated them, the the religious leaders hated them, the Romans didn't really like them because they they weren't Roman at the same time, but they were they were kind of really an enemy to everyone, extorting their own people for the good of the Roman Empire.

So they're a little bit of a middleman that no one really likes.

He would have been, he wouldn't have been accepted by his people, but he would be seen as a traitor.

But Jesus does this unthinkable thing, and he invites Matthew to follow him and be his disciple.

And what we can learn from this is the simple fact that Jesus meets us where we are and invites us into something more.

Jesus meets us where we are and invites us into something more.

Jesus is always what we see kind of through the gospel, and especially at the beginning of his ministry, he is just turning everything on its head.

Whatever the normal was, and in their culture, Jesus is kind of reforming and reshaping and transforming it.

Jesus meets Levi where he is and invites him into something greater.

And we see that Jesus recognizes potential where other people might see a problem.

Jesus recognizes potential where other people might see a problem.

Again, notice that there's no mention of this conversation between Jesus and Levi.

All we see is Jesus say, follow me, and then we see Levi say, Yes, I will.

And he leaves everything and follows Jesus.

We don't see anything of Jesus saying, fix your life and then come follow me.

Go do this and then come follow me.

Go do this, and then you can be my disciple.

But it's the simple request of come and follow me.

So Levi does just that.

He gets up, he leaves everything behind and begins to follow Jesus.

And we see that Jesus isn't looking for just the most qualified individuals to sit at his table.

He's not looking for those who have their lives all put together and look great from the outside.

Instead, Jesus meets us where we are and he invites us into something more with him.

And this is really good news for all of us.

It's really good news for me because if I had to fix myself up for Jesus, I don't know if I ever would have actually had a relationship with him.

But instead, Jesus saw me where I was, met me where I was, and called me into something more.

If Jesus invited Levi, he will invite you.

You don't have to earn this invitation, you don't have to fix your past first, you don't need to climb some religious ladder.

Jesus invites us to follow, not when we're ready or when we're qualified or when we're already perfect, but when we're just willing to surrender and repent and turn to him.

So we'll come back to kind of this idea a little later, but um continuing with the story, it says, Then Levi hosted a grand banquet for him at his house.

Now there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were climbing at the table with them, but the Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

So we see that Levi doesn't just follow Jesus privately, but then he starts, he starts celebrating him publicly.

When he meets Jesus and Jesus calls him into something more, Levi throws just this party.

And I love this scene because it shows that when you encounter the person of Jesus and you experience and even accept his invitation to join him and follow him, you you can't help but do something about that, right?

You can't help but show it and and tell other people about it in some way.

And Levi chose to just throw a party.

He throws this grand banquet to to probably show some appreciation and praise back to the Lord, but also to invite people, right?

To come and experience this man who has just called him to follow him.

So we see Levi respond by hosting this grand banquet, and then who else, who else does Levi invite?

The the tax collectors, other sinners.

Levi, Levi invites the other outcast, right?

Outcasts tend to probably stick together.

So when when Levi encounters the person of Jesus, who who else would he invite other than the people who are who are just like him, who probably felt forgotten and left out, people that are on the margins that religious leaders had already written off.

But Levi throws this party, Jesus shows up, he sits down, he eats with them, he shares a table with every with that that everyone else with people that everyone else would would never associate with, would never uh allow someone else to see them with these people.

And we have to understand how um significant it is that Jesus would even walk through the door of Levi's house in this situation because sharing a table in in their time meant something so much deeper than just just sharing a meal.

Table fellowship was all about acceptance and identity and community, and to eat with someone was to say that you actually belonged with them.

So we see that Jesus makes space for people that we tend to push out.

Jesus makes space for people that we tend to push out.

And this is why the Pharisees and scribes, as they as they saw this unfold, they were furious.

They were confused, complaining to his disciples.

And the issue wasn't that Jesus was was eating or having a meal with some friends.

It wasn't the uh the issue wasn't the fact that there was a party and this grand banquet happening, but the the problem was the the guest list, the problem was the the other people around the table with Jesus.

This is why the Pharisees and the scribes were so upset.

Jesus is eating with unclean people in an impure house, violating all their purity googly gop that they had during that time, and these these Pharisees just weren't for it.

This was offensive to the religious leaders, but it was also to the point through their eyes, it was it was blasphemous.

So then they say, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

If you're if you're the Messiah and the Savior of the world, if you're the Son of God, which is again who Jesus obviously was claiming to be, then how in the world could you share a table and sit and eat with sinners and tax collectors?

And what they're really saying is, why are you making room at the table for people like them?

Why is this the people you're spending your time with and your effort with and and focusing on during your ministry?

To the religious leaders, the people sitting at the table with Jesus were not worthy enough to be sitting there.

And this this sounds extreme.

It's it's probably easy from our perspective to quickly condemn these religious leaders and and say, oh, how like how could you have you know that mindset?

How could you say these things?

How could you deem someone unworthy of the Lord's presence?

But many of us, I mean, genuinely at times, probably including myself, we might not say it aloud.

We might not even do it consciously.

But again, because of the culture we live in, so many of us still draw these invisible lines that impact our ministry, that impact the way that we follow Jesus.

Again, we might not say it out loud, and we might not even think these things intentionally and consciously, but but sometimes we still have thoughts like, oh, you you just don't, you don't belong here.

Or she's too far gone, or or he needs to clean up first, or they've done way too much that they could possibly be forgiven, or that they would possibly be willing to come and share a meal with me, or come sit beside me at church.

And again, the the point of this is not trying to make anyone feel bad, but painting this picture of the reality that that we live in, that so many people feel excluded and even excluded from God's church, excluded from the body of Christ, but we have to see that Jesus is setting a bitter a bigger table and he's asking us to pull up more chairs.

If we follow Jesus, our job is not to guard the guest list, it's not to guard who walks through those doors, it's not to guard who joins our community group.

Our responsibility is to pull up more chairs and then let Jesus do his thing.

Let Jesus do the rest to make room to specifically include and pursue and chase after the broken, the searching, the ones that are left out, to include the people we might naturally avoid because ultimately that's what Jesus, that's what Jesus did for us.

So we see the religious leaders question Jesus on why he's eating with these type of people.

How could he possibly do this?

And now we get to see Jesus' answer.

It says Jesus replied to them, it is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick.

I've not come to call the righteous, but I've come to call sinners to repentance.

And I love that as you read through the gospels, never once does Jesus back down from this, from this uh the the condemnation of the Pharisees and their questioning and how could you possibly do this?

Never once does Jesus back down, but every single time, he just he just drops some some wisdom and and proverbial theological stuff, and I mean he just lays it on them and in this simple, in this simple sentence, he just says, it's not the healthy that need a doctor, it's the sick.

And this is such a simple metaphor, but it gives us such a deeper understanding into the heart of God.

Because in reality, we read that and we think it sounds good, but sometimes we don't really believe that.

Probably for us more on a personal standpoint than for other people.

It's not the healthy that need a doctor, it's the sick.

And um Jesus says, I'm not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

So again, that this is a simple metaphor, but it gives us an understanding of who God is.

You know what you call a doctor who doesn't help sick people?

You could you could probably call them whatever you want to, but a bad doctor it would probably be a, it would suffice as an answer.

It would be insane if there was a a doctor who neglected and said, No, I don't, I don't deal with sick people.

That's not my expertise.

But a doctor, their sole purpose is serving and helping those who are sick.

And again, Jesus is trying to show us the heart of our Father.

He wants to heal broken people.

The Father sent his son to be with broken people, not to avoid them.

Jesus came for the sick, not the self-sufficient.

We see again, Jesus is redefining what righteousness is and what his mission is all about, to rescue sinners, to rescue the sick, not the people that think they're healthy.

The same way it would be weird for a doctor to turn away sick people, it would be just as absurd for Jesus to turn away a sinner that desires and his longing for healing, longing for a place to belong.

That is not the that's not the character of Jesus.

He's incapable of having that attitude.

Jesus came to call sinners, not righteous Pharisees, not the self-sufficient.

And in the story, as he's saying this, he's not agreeing with the Pharisees and their belief that they're healthy and that they're not in need of a savior, but he's saying that they think they are, and as a result, they're in danger of missing him all together.

Tim Chester says says this about this passage.

He says, When Jesus eats with Levi, the message is clear.

Jesus came for sinners, people on the margins, people who've made a mess of their lives, people who are ordinary.

Jesus has come for you.

The only people left out are those who think they don't need God, the self-righteous and the self-important.

Sadly, that includes many people.

And that's the message of Jesus.

That man, if you're telling yourself, I'm I'm too far gone, I'm like Levi or I'm like Matthew.

No one wants me, no one sees me, no one wants me to belong with them.

Jesus has come for you.

He came to call the sinners to repentance.

And the Pharisees, they they built this system where only the strong, the clean, the capable could come in.

But Jesus has has built and established this table where the weak, the messy, the broken, the desperate people are the ones that are the guests of honors, the ones that are invited to to dine with him.

And we must constantly be on guard against this the self-righteousness and this self-sufficient attitude that the Pharisees had.

If we want to extend God's table and we want to pull more chairs up for the feast, then we have to be people ourselves who live like we need a doctor, like we need Jesus, like we need healing constantly in our lives, that we are constantly still falling short of the glory of God and we still need Jesus to do a work in us.

Only in that attitude are we actually gonna pull up chairs for other people.

But if we have the attitude that we're healthy, that we're good, that that we we said this prayer 14 years ago and we're gonna get our ticket to heaven, then we're not gonna have the attitude of wanting to pull up more and more chairs.

We don't need to be quick to point out others' brokenness and then slow to confess our own.

We don't need to be people who live like we have everything figured out and everything put together.

We don't need to spend our lives trying to look spiritually healthy on the outside while we're sick on the inside.

And this is, I mean, just this burden.

Um, I don't even know if that's that's the right word, but I I feel like I have fallen slave over the past, I don't know, I don't even, probably since the beginning of this year, of just the living under the burden of feeling like I have to live in a way that when everyone else looks at me, they think I have it figured out.

When I know deep down inside there is, I don't.

I don't, and there's still so much work that the Lord is doing in my life.

So I know how how heavy that burden can feel, but but that's not that's not the way of Jesus.

Jesus has not called us to live in that, but rather to to live in in his righteousness, to clothe ourselves with his righteousness.

We don't have to pretend our way to getting a seat at the table with Jesus.

We just have to admit that we're sick.

And the moment we admit the reality of what actually is, that's when the healer will sit down.

It's when Jesus will sit down at our table, but but not only him, but but we also get to enjoy the community and fellowship of other broken people and start to do life together.

So going back to kind of where we started at the beginning, everyone is looking for this place to belong.

Everyone's looking for a seat at the table, and the world's going to tell you that that belonging is found when you climb up this ladder of life, this ladder of success, this ladder of building up this great reputation, that you'll belong when you when you're when you're finally living clean and you're doing all the things that you're supposed to be doing, that you'll belong when you're when you become a good parent, that you belong when when you have the right politics and you you think the way everyone else thinks, that you'll belong when you have enough money in the bank, that that you'll belong to the church when your theology and your understanding of God is perfect, that you'll belong to the church when when you go every single Sunday and maybe even serve or join a community group, that you'll belong when you when you volunteer and do all these good deeds, that you'll belong when you feel like you're in a good spot morally and that you're a good person.

But again, that's just not that's not the message that we see in Scripture.

That's not the message that we see Jesus preaching.

That's not the reason that we see Jesus stepping down from eternity and taking the form of a servant.

The world is going to tell us the higher we climb, the more accepted we'll become, and then we'll feel better about ourselves because then we can look down on other people and say, oh, well, at least I got it more figured out than that person, or at least I'm a little bit better at this than than they are.

But again, this is not the way of Jesus.

It's not the way of Jesus.

Whether you know it or not, if you are seeking this feeling of belonging and this feeling of purpose, what you're seeking after ultimately, again, whether you know it or not, is salvation.

What you're seeking after is salvation, because salvation through Jesus Christ is the only thing that can provide value and identity and meaning and purpose to your life.

Salvation in Christ is the only thing that will give you this true and perfect sense of belonging.

Because that's when you belong to the kingdom of heaven.

That's when you're adopted as a son or a daughter of God.

That you get to live in not in a spirit of fear, but but in the spirit of being able to cry out, Abba, Father.

Coming to Jesus is less about climbing a ladder to earn something and more about coming to a table in humility.

At the table with Jesus, we aren't ranked, we're welcomed.

At the table with Jesus, we aren't measured, we're embraced.

And at the table with Jesus, we don't have to climb.

We just have to, we just have to come.

We have to surrender.

And there are a couple of different ways that we can see and and read a story like this in Luke 5.

There's a there's a couple of different ways we can respond to this.

And for one, maybe you just came in here this morning longing to feel like you belong to some to someone or something, and and you're just waiting for someone to say, hey, you can you can come sit here.

Um maybe you're you're you're you came in here this morning the same way Matthew went to his tax booth the morning before Jesus called him, just wanting to feel like he belonged to something.

Maybe you've spent your life trying to climb the ladder of success, and you're starting to realize that the ladder never it never ends.

And you felt like an outcast throughout your life, and you're thinking to yourself, there's no way that God wants to do, um, wants anything to do with a sinner like me.

There's just no, there's no way.

I'm too sick, I'm too sinful, I'm too far gone.

Um, I wanna, I wanna, we're we're baptizing one of our students.

Sorry, this is gonna be real difficult to get through this, but we're we're baptizing one of our students at the 11 o'clock, and I just want to read two little sections of her testimony.

Um, this is this is we typically phrase it, our life before God, how we encounter Christ, how Christ has changed our life.

So this is her section of of what her life was like before um before Christ.

All right.

She said, Um, growing up, I never felt chosen.

Um, I always felt like I wasn't enough or that I was too much.

It always felt like there were other options that were better than me.

Work, my siblings, other friends, it constantly felt like something was preventing people from choosing me.

What I didn't realize was that even if I wasn't enough or even too much for someone else, I was beautifully and wonderfully made in the eyes of God.

Skipping down to the end of how her life has changed after encountering Christ.

I felt paralyzed by God's overwhelming love.

The Lord made me feel seen and heard.

He'd shown me that even when it felt like no one else was, he was actively choosing me.

I just remembered all the times he has answered my prayers.

God took me from feeling like an imposter to showing me that religion wasn't what all of this is about.

It's about relationship.

I now feel validated in my feelings.

I know the truth.

I no longer feel like an impostor.

I have confidence that I belong with him.

I matter.

I now know that I've always mattered.

And that that story, this I mean, this is a testimony.

I promise, this she probably writ wrote that testimony before I wrote this message.

I promise you.

But this this it just fits so perfect into the sermon, and this is the power of encountering Jesus.

This is what happens when we encounter Jesus, and we take a seat at his table, and Jesus is inviting you to experience this same power for yourself.

The whole point of a testimony is to show people what Christ has done in our life.

And through this testimony, I promise you, and through what Christ has done in my life, that Jesus, man, he's inviting you.

He has a place for you, he has a seat for you at the table, and he wants you, man, he wants you so, so desperately to just sit down, come as you are, surrender to him, and repent and believe in him.

Jesus says, I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Romans 5 says that while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

When Jesus left his throne in heaven, he had you in mind.

And at the right time, Christ died for you.

And now he's inviting you to repent and take a seat at his table.

Repent and believe in the gospel, and you'll be welcomed and you will belong to the kingdom of God.

Now, for on the other side of that, for those of us who have already taken the seat at the table of Jesus, and we have a story like cadence and this sense of belonging, and we know that we've been loved and seen and been wonderfully and beautifully made by God, then now we have another responsibility.

Our responsibility is to pull up more chairs.

Just as Jesus invites us to the table as we are in all of our mess, all of our brokenness, we have got to do the same for people around us.

We should open up our tables to become places of belonging where broken people can find a family.

We shouldn't force people to ascend to the same social rung on the ladder as us, but our tables, our homes, our lives should represent this concept of an open table, being willing to welcome in whoever wants to come and have a seat, reflecting the heart of God for humanity.

And we know that groups are gonna kick off in a few weeks, and we want our groups to reflect this grand banquet that we see at Levi's house.

We want our groups to be broken people meeting together, centered around the person of Jesus, hanging on to whatever word and whatever he might want to say and do in our midst.

And the the reality is that we won't always get it right.

We won't always get it right as a church, we won't always get it right within our individual community groups.

We're probably gonna mess things up.

We might even say things that we don't mean or or do things we shouldn't have done.

People might feel excluded, but but again, the the desire, the prayer is that we want to try to let our tables reflect the table of Jesus, where there's always space for the broken, there's always space for the sick, there's always space for those who feel left out.

So our um band's gonna come up in just a second, and we're gonna respond in worship.

And it and it's really just in one of those two ways.

Um, if you identify with Matthew and you feel like you're a social outcast and and no one wants you at your table, and um maybe you've even had experienced just this traumatic time where you were excluded or or pushed out, then it's just the invitation.

Man, hear the invitation of Jesus that the Lord wants to heal whatever wounds you have, and He wants wants to help you step into the kingdom and then step out in faith to find a community of healing, a community of people to do life with.

So if that's you, and and and we would be honored to pray with you, to help you walk through that, whatever it may be.

Um, but if that's you, then my challenge is to respond in that way as we respond in worship.

And then again, maybe for some of you, you need to move need to be more diligent about pulling up extra chairs to your table.

Think about who have you excluded, whether you you meant to or not.

Who do you need to extend an invitation to sit with you?

What invisible lines do you need to erase so that someone else can be in embrace and experience the person in the community of Jesus?

So I'm gonna pray for us and our team will lead us in worship.

Father, again, we are we're grateful for the gospel.

Um, we're grateful that we have a reason to gather, a reason to to do life in community.

And um God, we're thankful that of the way that Jesus just came in and flipped the world upside down.

We're thankful that that Jesus meets us where we are and invites us into something so much more.

And I just pray that that anyone in here who's just um feeling messy or or broken, um, feels like they don't belong or they have no place, God, that they would just experience your presence.

Um, God, that they would experience the person of Jesus, his invitation, and that they would just come to the table and surrender everything to the feet of Jesus.

For the rest of us, I pray that you would bring to mind people in our lives that we may have excluded, whether we meant to or not, people in our lives that we haven't invited to share a meal, we haven't invited to church, we haven't invited to a community group because we think they're either too far gone or they won't fit in or that they don't belong here.

Forgive us for that.

And then just bring healing and boldness to reach out to those people and welcome them in the same way that you've welcomed us in.

But God, we we give this time to you, where our worship and our response be glorifying to you.