“Feasting on the Lord”
Luke 14:15-24

I. Introduction

Thousands camped out to be first in line for the recent releases of the Apple Iphone and the new Harry Potter book.  I remember doing the same as a teenager in order to get tickets to a Led Zeppelin concert.  The level of passion expressed at sports events and rock concerts usually far exceeds the passion expressed in most worship services.  There is something dangerously wrong when even Christians demonstrate more passion for worldly activities than for Christ and God’s kingdom.  This morning we are going to explore one of Christ’s kingdom parables that addresses this topic of being passionate for God.
 

II. Exposition

Our Bible study passage begins in the middle of a longer story, so let me place it in this larger context.  Jesus was attending a large banquet, and as was typical, he used the immediate situation as an illustration of some kingdom truth he wanted to reveal.  One point he made was that as citizens of God’s kingdom, like our heavenly Father who invites all to His banquet table, we too should live lives that present an open invitation to God’s blessings to all, but especially to those normally overlooked or looked down on by society, who Christ called the “poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.”  It is at that point in the conversation that someone shouted out what we read in verse 15: "Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."  In response, Christ tells the parable of the Great Banquet.

The kingdom of God being compared to a great banquet or a wedding feast is a common theme throughout the Bible, which is what this Jewish man was referring to when he talked about the “feast in the kingdom of God.”  One of my favorite Bible passages that was read for our Call to Worship is an example of this kingdom banquet theme.  So Christ in our passage tells yet another parable of the kingdom as a Great Banquet.  Now, there are many kingdom truths revealed in this short parable.  But this morning, we are going to explore what this parable reveals about the heavenly Father’s heart toward the spiritually lost, and on how we as Christians can cut ourselves off from many kingdom blessings when we insist on feasting on the pleasures of this world instead of feasting on Christ.

So our parable begins, v 16 Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.  17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready."

This “certain man” is of course our heavenly Father, and what we discover already in just this opening verse is God’s great big heart of grace and love in that God’s invitation to eternal life is offered to many….”many guests were invited” we read.  But tragically, we then read that all those who were initially invited began to make up excuses as to why they couldn’t come.  And these are really lame excuses!  The one says he has just brought a field, the other a bunch of oxen, and both say that now they need to go check them out.  Well this would be like us saying, “Oh, I just brought a house or a used car, I brought them sight unseen, and now I need to go check them out.”  No one in those days would buy property or livestock without first having already seen them.  The other excuse is that he just got married.  Well, what new wife would turn down an opportunity to go to a fancy banquet, and get out of making dinner!

Here’s what is happening is this parable.  Almost all of the parables Christ told were based on familiar parables that other rabbis told, and so were very familiar stories to the hearers.  However, what Christ would do would be to introduce a new twist to the story line, and in that twist, he would present some kingdom truth that would provoke a response of either repentance or rage.  In this parable, Christ is picking up on the statement made by the Jewish man who shouted out, “Blessed are those who will attend God’s kingdom feast.”  What this man was really saying was, “blessed are all us Jewish people who will be the only ones at this feast!”  

What Christ does in this parable if to confront this arrogant assumption that just being a Jew would guarantee eternal life.  Instead, Christ is revealing that only those who accepted His invitation as the Messiah would get to attend the wedding feast of the Lamb.  And in fact, all those that thought they would be there, but who reject Christ, would be shut out of God’s kingdom forever!  Needless to say, this parable would not have been well received at the banquet Christ was attending!  

Next, Christ in this parable also reveals just who does get to come to God’s kingdom banquet.
We read beginning in verse 21: The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'
22 "'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'
23 "Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.  

This would have been the second invitation sent out.  The first one was the original announcement of an upcoming banquet.  This invite was then sent out to tell the invited guests to “Come for all things are ready.”  In that culture, to reject a second invitation of hospitality was considered an act of war!  So we read that the owner of the house, that Father God, is furious when the invited ones reject his gracious invitation!

So the owner of the house commands his servants to go an invite “the poor, the blind, the crippled, and the lame.”  This group represented all those who were not welcome to worship along with the Jewish people in their temple.  But now Christ was revealing that they are always welcome at God’s kingdom banquet!  The ones who were invited from the “roads and country lanes” represented the Gentiles, the non-Jews, who were now also being offered a place at God’s banquet table.

Now I can say this next statement with full conviction.  As I pray and study God’s Word on behalf of this congregation, and in seeking God’s vision for us, I believe in my spirit that this verse captures the Father’s heart for us as to who specifically our Lord would have us reach out to with the gospel.  I believe our Lord is calling us to specifically target our outreach to the “blind, the lame, the crippled, and the poor.”  That is, we are being called to take the gospel to the outcasts, the unwanted, the neglected and rejected in our city. 
Now if Christians move into our city and are looking for a church, of course we will embrace them.  Or if someone is currently attending a congregation that is no longer preaching the gospel, or spiritually feeding the people, or is a harmful environment in any way, we will certainly embrace such hurting sheep with full acceptance and minister healing and new life to them!

But I still believe that our Lord has uniquely prepared this congregation, based on the height of your spiritual maturity and the depth of your compassion, to reach, restore, and equip those in our city who are not being effectively reached by the typical program-driven churches in Dubuque.  I believe we are called and equipped to reach out to those with deep hurt, broken lives and families, and with deeply rooted additive behaviors.  If this is true, and even if it isn’t, then for our own growth in Christ, we need to grasp the second truth of this parable that I want to focus on this morning.

This parable operates on many levels.  On one level, Christ is revealing that He is ushering in a new dispensation of God’s salvation plan of humanity wherein the gospel would be more accepted by non-Jews than Jews.  Now we read elsewhere in Scripture that the hardening of the hearts of the people of Israel is not a permanent hardening, thanks be to God!  So clearly, a major interpretation of this parable must emphasis this truth.  But I believe this parable also operates on another level of application to all Christians right now.  Christ is teaching here kingdom principles of how we can appropriate the blessings and power of the kingdom right now, and what can block us from receiving such blessings and power.
 
 The principle is this: The kingdom banquet belongs to the hungry and thirsty.

Christ tells us in the beatitudes, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom.”  In our parable this morning, it is the Jews who are being shut out from the kingdom banquet, and those who are most hungry and thirsty for God’s blessings, here represented by the poor, blind, crippled, lame, and Gentiles who get to feast on God’s kingdom blessings.

The Jews here represent Christians who have lost their hunger for God, who take for granted their salvation and all the blessings this includes, who no longer are passionate in their zeal for the kingdom, in worship, in prayer, or in reaching the lost.  They are the lukewarm Christians that Christ spews out of His mouth in Revelation.  They are the ones who just assume that their salvation is in tact, and therefore they really don’t have to do anything to grow in grace or to live lives that call others to salvation.  They are the ones who just tolerate sin in their life either because they simply have no desire to give up certain sins, or because they don’t believe that God offers them the power to do so.  They are the ones whose Christianity is just one addition to their life, perhaps it fills a social need, or eases guilt, or gives them some false hope that token Christianity will somehow keep them out of hell!

Whatever the situation, all these fall into the larger category of passionless Christianity.  Here is a kingdom truth that no one can escape:  If your passion and affections are not being primarily satisfied in Christ, you will engage in sinful behavior in order to have this passion satisfied.  

Why is this an inescapable truth?  Because our thinking does not primarily drive us, we are ultimately not rational people.  We are emotional, passionate people, and our behavior is driven by whatever we believe in our heart will bring us the least amount of pain and the maximum amount of pleasure.  Our behavior is driven by our passions, by whatever it is for which we hunger and thirst.

So much teaching and counseling that is labeled Christian is really Buddhist.  The goal of Buddhism is to kill all desire, because it rightly recognizes the truth that we are driven by our desires.  And since we are fallen sinful people, our desires tend to drive us to harmful behavior.  
But as Christians, we are born-again creatures, given a brand new spirit being inside of us that dwells in union with Holy Spirit so that we can operate out of holy desires.  Therefore, the path out of our sin is not to kill desire, but to redirect our desires to that which can truly fulfill us.  And for us that is always Jesus Christ!

Every time we sin, we are choosing to satisfy a desire with the world’s counterfeit satisfaction.  When someone reaches for a bottle, or a pipe, or pornography, or earthly success, fame or power, or an over-indulgence in un-sinful but still worldly pleasure, he or she is seeking to satisfy a deep hunger and thirst in his or her soul that ultimately only Jesus Christ can satisfy.  Therefore, the way out of temptation is always the same, label the hunger, renounce the false means of satisfaction, and enter into prayer and worship of the triune God.

C.S. Lewis, in the Weight of Glory, puts this principle like this:
"Indeed if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with [temporal things] when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

So this principle of the kingdom blessings belonging to the hungry and thirsty applies to appropriating the power to be free from sin, but is also applies to appropriating all the blessings and power of the kingdom.  God grants His blessings and power only to those who are hungry and thirsty for them!  As John Piper articulates in his must-read book, Desiring God is this, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”  To live as a true disciple of Jesus Christ one must have their deepest affections and strongest passions satisfied in Christ.  

Now we do not need, as Christians, to get new passions, because of New Covenant realties wherein we are filled with God’s Holy Spirit already, our deepest desire is for God’s glory.  What happens is we quench that passion by settling for an over indulgence in the pleasures of this world.  As John Piper puts it:
"If we don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied.  It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world.  Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great."