Sermon Tone Analysis

January 10, 2015

*Read Lu 14:15-24* – One of the great football coaches (I forget which – maybe Lombardi) saw an article one morning that called him “great.”

Taken with his own press, he looked into a mirror and asked his wife, “How many great coaches do you think there are?” Her response: “One less than you think.”

That is the warning Jesus issues in this passage on the kingdom.

How many will be there?

Be careful; it may be one less than you think.

It’s a wonderful passage; it pictures the glories of the kingdom of God as a feast to end all feasts.

And the invitation is open to everyone – absolutely everyone without exception.

BUT underlying the glory is the grave warning – not everyone is going to be there who thinks they are going to be there.

The context is the Sabbath lunch to which Jesus was invited by a group of Pharisees.

In vv.

12-14 Jesus tells a parable noting that they should invite the poor, crippled and blind to their parties instead of just friends who can reciprocate.

He is alerting them to consider their self-centered ways and to encourage repentance for entrance to His kingdom.

In v. 14 He notes serving others as an expression of faith will be rewarded.

“For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

These guys knew this reflected Jesus’ opinion that their current lifestyle did not indicate such saving faith.

So, v. 15: “When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” That sounds innocuous, but in the context it is almost certain that a threat lies behind those words.

He’s countering Jesus, claiming he and his pals will find a place at the table in God’s kingdom BUT implying Jesus will not.

He’s countering Jesus’ reference to reward at the resurrection by saying, “Yes, we will be blessed to break bread in God’s kingdom, but we have doubts about you.”

And Jesus answers, “The kingdom!

Ah, yes!

The kingdom will be wonderful.

Let’s talk about the kingdom.”

And then He launches into a parable: “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.”

In doing this, Jesus is agreeing with the man’s statement, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Any feast can banish hunger and sadness for or a day.

But this man believes the kingdom of God is like a feast to end all feasts – a time and place when hunger will be gone forever and our sorrow will be gone forever; when the blessing will be forever!

And Jesus is agreeing, “Yes, the kingdom is a feast.”

That’s an assessment of someone who knows very well what the kingdom is all about.

It takes us back to Jesus’ first miracle in John 2, when Jesus turned water to wine at a wedding feast -- fine wine that turned a mediocre party into a great party.

That was His first miracle.

But in the NT miracles are always signs.

They are not just exercises in bare naked power but always have significance beyond themselves.

As Tim Keller says, they are supernatural marques revealing deeper truth about who He was and why He came.

So why would His first miracle be turning water into wine to save this wedding party?

Why didn’t He do something less frivolous?

Why throw a great party with your first miracle?

Why?

To stress the unmitigated joy of being part of God’s kingdom.

It’s easy to think that Christianity is basically, “Don’t smile too much.

Keep your nose clean.

Obey the rules.

Pass out the bulletins.

Do your time in a soup kitchen and forgo the new car for the Building Fund.”

Is that Christianity?

Listen, our faith may demand that and more.

Jesus said in Mt 8:20, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

His life wasn’t easy and neither will ours be.

He promises the world will persecute us just like it persecuted Him.

But while Christianity is hard, it is not joyless.

Just the opposite.

Our hardship is leading somewhere – to something wonderful.

And accompanying us on the way is the Lord of feast who was signaling by that miracle, “I come to bring festival joy.

Where my face turns, the trees laugh and sing for joy.

Where I am there is inescapable joy.”

If we don’t understand that, we don’t understand Him.

Listen to Isaiah describe the kingdom as a feast: Isa 25: 6) On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

7) And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations (Veil, what veil?

Next v.) 8) He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.”

Yes, the kingdom is wonderful – like a great feast.

“But,” Jesus goes on, “it’s not the kind you think.

You would limit the list to the best and the brightest – to those you revere and admire.

You want the fun crowd, the party crowd, the in-crowd.

But while the kingdom of heaven is the feast to end all feasts, it is not the kind you think.

Getting in is not how you think.

And those who get in will not be who you think.

Very likely, there will be one less than you think.”

To be part of God’s kingdom requires a humility the Pharisees never came close to demonstrating.

Entrance is not earned as they think.

And it is not limited to the Jewish elite as they think.

Jesus shows 4 ways we must humble ourselves to enter God’s kingdom.

These are ways we must continually humble ourselves to experience the joy of the kingdom even in the middle to the crises of this life.

It’s there for all.

But we must humble ourselves under kingdom principles – under the Phasing of the kingdom, the Pricelessness of the kingdom, the Priority of the kingdom and the Proliferation of the kingdom.

These teach us a lot about the kingdom.

*I.

Humble Yourself Under the Phasing of the Kingdom (16)*

16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited (or had invited) many.

At a high level this parable is not difficult to interpret.

The Master who gives the banquet is God.

The servant who invites is God the Son – Jesus.

And those invited are various people-groups.

The first group, represented by the religious elite and Pharisees, is the nation of Israel.

They have had the benefit of hundreds of years of revelation from God and are first invited as we saw in Isa 25.

And, certain individual Jews, like the disciples, have accepted the invitation and be at the banquet.

But as a nation, Israel is rejecting the invitation.

They will not humble themselves under the phasing of the kingdom.

They have expectations of Messiah – immediate political deliverance – and if that is not on the program, you can count them out.

They are unbelievers because they do not understand nor accept the nature of a kingdom that demands rulership of the king from the inside out.

Nor do they understand the timing (phasing) of the kingdom.

Verse 16 indicates the invitation had gone out, but the date is unsure.

This was in keeping with the custom of the time.

A great banquet of this sort involved two invitations – one that indicated a feast would be held, but without a specified date – and a second that indicated things were now ready and the time was now.

The kingdom of heaven is like that – like a feast that is in preparation.

You might come by and taste a little.

You smell it.

You get a lot of the joy of it.

But it doesn’t come in fullness until the end.

It is “now”, but “not yet”.

It is now in the sense that those who have accepted the invitation have Christ ruling in their hearts right now, and much peace and joy come with that regardless of circumstances.

But it is not yet in the sense that external kingdom conditions are not yet.