Episode 047 || You're Invited

Well, what's up, Pando family? Excited to be back with you this week for our Pando exclusive podcast. You got Brandon and I today. If it's your first time, he's Brandon. My name is Derek, we're part of our online team here at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. And we are here today to be able to walk through the sermon with you from the previous weekend. We do this every week with the soul goal, the one purpose to help all of us, but especially you watching part of our church family follow Jesus the best way you can. And so, you know, Brandon, today we're gonna be wrapping up the sermon series. It went quick. - Oh yeah. - What was it, five weeks? - Five weeks, yeah, the kingdom is real. - The kingdom is real. And so, our hope would be that after this week and after the sermon series that you would feel more convinced that the kingdom is actually real. You know, Jesus talked about the kingdom is coming. The kingdom is here. The kingdom is at hand so many times. - Yeah. - Just throughout what we see of his life and what's recounted, recounted. - That's good, yeah.

- Counted to us throughout the Gospels. But Brandon, today as a recording this is the first day of fall. - Oh yeah. - It's the first day of fall. - It's getting cooler, it's getting dark sooner. Like it's, I mean, it's coming. - Yes. - Well, it's here. - Yeah, are you so, are you someone that likes getting dark sooner? Do you like, where do you land on that? - You know, I mean, I'm fine with whatever. Me and my, the biggest problem right now is, you know, my son has been helping me cut the grass this year and like, I keep forgetting it gets dark sooner. So like, we'll go out at seven o'clock and I'll be like, well, we gotta hurry now. You know, you used to be able to go out at seven 30. It's like, oh, we got, you know, an hour and 45 minutes. But now it's like, if we don't get started by six 45, we're gonna be pushing daylight there. So, yeah, I don't, it doesn't really bother me. I just, I really enjoy the cooler weather there. That's the best part of it is yesterday we walked out on the porch and it was like, oh, okay. It is like 70 degrees. This is great. It had been just so humid and muggy and lovable this summer. So it's, you know, it's nice for it to be nice.

- Nice for a break and then what? Yeah, I was talking to, I think I was, maybe I was talking to you yesterday. I mean, I was talking to you and I was talking about like, I think my two favorite times of the year is like, when it goes from being hot then to somewhat cool. And then it goes from being really cold to somewhat warm. Like any time there's like breaks, like that's for whatever reason. I just, I love those moments. - Yeah, it's, I mean, I guess it just kind of speaks to our, our discontentment with whatever season we're in. - Yeah, and there you go, there's this. - It got cooler again. This is great. Oh, it got warmer again. This is great. It's never like, you know, 'cause we'll get, you know, fall is great, but we'll get into winter and they'll be snow and they'll be terrible. And then spring will come and it'll be. All right, here we go again. - Yes, but the good thing about no matter which season that we are in, thankfully, you know, we get to walk through just so many good sermon series over and over and over again. And we hope that you feel the same way that each one of the sermons that you hear a part of our church that we post on the pando after you guys are helpful,

that they help you understand God's word. I know that as I've read, I know you have two, several of the letters that y'all send us each week. I know that trying to understand more about scripture is a big deal. Like it's, I understand like some parts can be confusing and trying to figure out what it means. - Right. That's why we do this podcast every week to help kind of flesh out a little bit more from the sermon and in the text. And so, Brandon, I'm excited today to be able to talk about where we are in Luke chapter 14, talking about this parable that Kyle brought to the table, but kind of just walk us through maybe the context of where we're at and Jesus sharing this parable. - Yeah, so we're in Luke chapter 14. So Jesus is in the middle of his ministry and he's been preaching and teaching long enough to where he's ruffled the feathers of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the religious leaders. Like they are just looking for ways to trap him and get him to say things that they can use against him. And so, they kind of get their wish a little bit in Luke chapter 14 because they have this dinner party where people are gathered together. And in that day, when you went to a party, it really mattered where you sat, right? Like if you were at the head of the table, near the host and things like that, like it was a really big deal to have that place of honor.

- Like a status thing. - Yeah, like a status thing. And you know, you think from a practical matter, everyone who's gathered around the host can, you know, speak to him and hear him well, you know, if you've had a lot of people in your home or whatever, you know, you've, there's a lot of yelling over each other and like, if you're sitting by the host, you can hear the host, you can engage with him. And so, you know, Jesus is at this party in Luke 14 and in verse seven, it tells us, you know, he's just kind of sitting there and he notices that everyone is jockeying for a seat at the head of the table. Like they want to be noticed. They want to be seen there. And so, you know, Jesus takes this opportunity to, you know, let the Pharisees and the Sadducees and religious leaders in on a little secret that the kingdom is not a place where a position like that matters, where it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where you sit at the table. It's that you are at the table. And so he talks to them and says, well, hey, listen, guys, when you go to a feast, don't take the position of honor there for yourself. Don't sit yourself there. Instead, like, well, what would happen is if you sit in the place of honor and someone's like, oh, no, that seat's not for you. Like, yeah, you're going to be humiliated. You're going to it's going to be humbled. Cool. Yeah. Like, okay. But if you take the lowest place at the feast and then someone escorts you to the higher place of honor, then you're going to be honored in front of people. And that makes a lot of sense, right? Yeah. I think we would all see the very practical nature of that. But there's also like an element of what Jesus has been talking about all along with the kingdom of heaven, that the kingdom of heaven is a place where things are inverted, right? Where what you expect to happen isn't always

what happens. You know, there's a very famous statement he makes where, you know, in the kingdom of heaven, the last will become first and the first will become last. And so he's again, just reiterating that that, you know, at God's table, those people who the world honors, like their place isn't up in that place of honor. It's those who are humble, those who are poor in spirit, as he says in the beatitudes, like it's those people who are elevated at the feast of the kingdom. Man, this reminds me, you know, we in our house, our kids eat, you know, depending on what's like the weekend, for example, like they eat a lot of their like breakfast and lunches and sometimes dinners up at like the like the bar in our kitchen. And there's there's kind of like four stools that are there. And our kids always try to sit in the the two that are on the far left. And the funny part about that is that the TV is up against the wall that's closest to the the one on the far left. So the furthest left of the four chairs is what they call first chair. Okay, there you go. So our first seat is what they say first seat in the amount of fights that those two have over be lining down the stairs to my wife or me. Say, Hey, dinner's ready, breakfast is ready, whatever it is. The first thing they say, I want first seat. Yeah, I want first seat. I want first seat and it has opened up so many conversations for us as their parents of like, Hey, like wouldn't it be great if we followed what Jesus said and tried to like, I don't know, maybe put the other person first. Yeah, yeah. And I wish that that lesson has sunk in and it has yet to sink it. They're like, Hey, Jesus didn't know about the spot for the TV man. Like he would have, he might have been. Yeah, but I get the same way though. If things in my life, like there's no doubt.

But seeing it in other people is a lot easier than recognizing it. Oh, yeah, for sure. And I think there is this this element of selfishness in our hearts and in our lives where it's like, Hey, if, if there is a better spot, I want that spot. Like I want that spot reserved for me. And so Jesus, you know, very clearly addresses that in the, in the fair season Sadducees like, Hey guys, you got to, you got to stop this. You can't live that way because the kingdom doesn't elevate, you know, people the way you guys do. And so then he makes it even more awkward. Like this becomes a very awkward dinner party, right? Like Jesus already said, Hey, don't sit. Don't sit where you're trying to sit. People start looking around like, Okay, Hey, Hey, Tom, we saw you like we all saw you doing that. Uh, but then in verse 12, it says, then Jesus turns to his host. So it's like, Okay, well, let's make this more uncomfortable. And he says, when you put on a luncheon or banquet, don't invite your friends, brothers, relatives and rich neighbors, because they'll invite you back. Uh, instead invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Then at the resurrection of the righteous, God will repay you for inviting those who will refer for inviting those who could not repay you. And, you know, so he looks at the host of the party and says, Hey, like you've invited all these people because they can invite you back. All right, these are, these are your friends. These are your relatives. These are people you want to impress. And you have had this party for the, the purpose of impressing them so that you will get an invitation back. Don't do that.

Instead, throw a party for people who can't repay you through show hospitality to invite these people into your home, invite these people into your life without expectation that they can do something for you. And again, he's addressing that pride in our hearts, right? Like you want to do things so that you will impress other people. You wanna do things so other people will notice that they will want to be around you in return. And Jesus is saying, no, like instead of doing that, instead of utilizing what you have and who you are for your own benefit, utilize it for other people. And there's very clearly this lesson he wants to drive home to them, like hey guys, you keep thinking, like, we want to have a place of importance. We wanna have a place of prominence and that's not how the kingdom operates. That's not what this is about. So, and then, like this is already, this feels like an episode of The Office, right? It's incredibly uncomfortable for everybody like, this is awkward, this is as the kids would say cringe, right? Like Jesus is the, everyone's kind of looking at the host wondering what's going on. But I love, I don't know who this guy is. In verse, in Luke 14, 15, this random guy just kind of stands up and is like a guy sitting at the table with Jesus, exclaimed what a blessing it will be to attend a banquet in the kingdom of God. Like he is just-- - Say all right, buddy.

- Yeah, he's just trying to deflect everything, like heaven is gonna be great, right? And I love that guy, he's just, he's trying to cut the tension in the most awkward way possible. - Yeah, everyone knows that person. Everybody's got somebody like that. - I mean, maybe that should be your next go-to, like next time things get awkward, just be like, hey, heaven's gonna be awesome. - All right, it'll be good regardless, Jesus, won't it? (laughing) - So, Jesus replies then with a parable there, and he goes into this parable of a banquet where a guy invites, he's invited his friends to go in a banquet, and his Kyle pointed out, a banquet normally had two invitations. You would send out weeks in advance to get people to plan for it, and then on the day of the banquet, you would send your servants out to tell people, hey, the party has started, like come on and you can come, everything's ready. And so, presumably everyone has accepted the first invitation that was weeks before, but when the master sends out his servants to invite them to come to the banquet, they start making excuses. Like, they've already agreed to come to this party, and yet they just start throwing out excuses,

and they become more and more ridiculous as time goes on. Like, the first guy says, I bought a field and must inspect it. Like, you don't buy a field without inspecting it, right? - Yeah, that's true. - Like, our modern day example that would be like, I bought a car, and I need to go check it out. Like, you wouldn't do that, you wouldn't check it out first. The other guy, I bought five pair of oxen, and I wanna try them out. Same sort of thing, you wouldn't buy five oxen without knowing a thing about them. And then the third guy is, I have a wife, so I can't come. And actually, that's a pretty good, I think, I've used that excuse most times. - Yeah, blame it in the wife, yeah. - Like, I have a wife, I can't be there. So, again, the excuses just get more and more ridiculous. Like, these things these people should have known. Like, the guy who says I have a wife. Like, his idea is, I mean, have you forgotten your wedding day? Like, this was your wedding day, and you were like, oh, no, we'll just come to a banquet after that. So, all these people turn the master down. They don't come to the feast. And then, so the servant comes back, tells the master, and he says, we'll go out and get the people who didn't respond.

Go out and find the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. Go in, compel them, invite them to come into the feast. And so, the servant does that. These people become coming into the feast, and after this first wave, they look around, and they realize there's still more room to the table. And so, the parable kinda ends open-endedly with this idea of, like, go back out, and get more and more people to come into the feast, because we wanna fill the table at this banquet that's going on. - And so, you know, I think one of the things I think about whenever I hear this, and even just setting up the context, I thought that was worthwhile to go through, because it's clear that God values things, and maybe God values people differently than we do. Like, just from like a human perspective, like, we tend to value like the brightest, shiniest, newest, whatever it is. Like, we even see that, you know, all the way back when, you know, Israel's asking for a king, you know, and then God gives them Saul the tallest, the best-looking, strongest-all, you know. You go down the list, and then it proves that like, well, he ended up at the end of the day wasn't a good king, right? And that's where we get this line from God of like, well, God looks at the heart where man, like, we kind of just look at the outward appearance.

You know, even in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus like, "Hey, well, can this son sit on your right hand and this son sit on your left hand?" And then Jesus is like, "Well, okay, first of all, you don't know what you're asking. Second of all, it's not mine to give away." But then he goes on down to say, "It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave." And so it is this upside down, at least to us, way of thinking about how we relate to other people, like how we feel about other people, because I think oftentimes when we think about the gospel, like I think we know it's an invitation, but there are times that we almost approach it as if we're applying for a job, where it's like, "Okay, well, it's like I need to get my resume together with all the things I've done, all the things I've been, you know, a part of or I've accomplished, and then I'm going to write, you know, maybe this cover letter talking about like, "Yeah, like, this is why I think it would be a good fit." And then you have a couple of interviews to kind of prove that you kind of know what you're talking about. And then you're accepted, and then you still kind of spend the first several months trying to prove yourself to where accepting the invitation of the gospel is different, but other than that tangent that I just randomly went on, what is Jesus trying to get us to understand here? Oh man, I think there are so many things that Jesus wants us to understand here, and having trouble deciding what I want to start with. I guess I would, you know, kind of what you're talking about, I think so often we live that way because that's the nature of the world we live in, right? Like we live in a world where resources are limited, we live in a world where opportunities are limited. So how do we get those things? Well, we get those things by putting ourselves in a position to get those things, right? We get those things by making sure like, "Hey, I'm the best, I'm the fastest, I'm the strongest, I can get there, I can get those things, I can accomplish those things, I can achieve those goals before anyone else." And, you know, we live in a world that because of sin is defined by scarcity, like we are running out of resources, we are running out of things, and so we have to make sure we get ours before anybody else does, right? And so I think what, like one of the fundamental things Jesus is telling us is that his kingdom isn't like that, right? His kingdom is not a kingdom of scarcity, his kingdom is not a kingdom where things run out, right? That God has immeasurably more, infinitely more than we can imagine. And so he's never going to run out, he's never going to, he's never going to lack anything that,

you know, just because, you know, in our world so often, right? Like if you get something, that means it's not there for me. But in God's kingdom, it's, well, just because God gives something to one person, he still has more to give to everyone else. That makes a lot of sense, I hadn't thought about that, that you're right, you know, because even if we think about, gosh, yeah, so much of our, I wonder how much of our satisfaction comes with comparison to others, which is a double-edged sword because at the same time, that's where almost our disappointment comes from too, of like, well, I don't make as much as them, or, you know, I don't have this relationship with my family, like this person does, or my marriage isn't like this, or it is like this, or I feel like I look better than this other person, or I'm stronger, faster, whatever it is, and you're right, that comparison game, it can be a deadly trap. Yeah, and that's exactly what I think the Pharisees and Sadducees and the other religious leaders, like that's the game they were trying to play with God, even, that's the game they were trying to play with religion, is, well, you know, there's a pecking order in the kingdom of heaven, so I want to make sure that I have the right credentials, that I look more holy, that I look more righteous, that I've followed every bit of the law, that I've memorized, memorized many books of the Bible, things like that, and so if we take that kind of scarcity mentality into the kingdom with us, like, we're going to get everything backwards, because either we're going to put ourselves in a position to where we feel better than everyone else, like, oh, I deserve to be here, or we're going to put ourselves in a situation where we feel completely unworthy compared to everyone else, like, we're unworthy anyway, right, but like, if we're looking at other people feeling like we're unworthy compared to them, well, like, oh, they deserve God's favor and I don't, like, then that's also a problem too, because we're going to, we're going to run ourselves into the ground and never feel, never feel rooted in our identity in Jesus, because we're going to think, I haven't been able to do do what they've done. So I'm not Yeah, and I can imagine, you know, like I'm trying to put a picture in my head of, you know, say like, you know, funny enough, God was there in the flesh through Jesus, you know, but like if even if the Pharisees would have been convinced about that, right, these religious leaders, these people that have devoted their lives to following, you know, Torah, Moses, the law of Moses, and even in their, you know, addition to those things, like all the things that they added to that, they kind of put a burden on people that was unintentional, or

at least that God didn't intend, right, and say that, you know, there are this group of people that are walking in, God has invited 10 of these people and, you know, say that you have like, you know, five Pharisees and five people that are crippled, lame, blind, people that the Pharisees would think, yeah, they're probably not following God. So they're probably going through these things as a byproduct of that, or they're just not worthy. Like, I wonder how they would have reacted if God in the flesh would have interacted with those people first had them seated at the table at the seat of honor at the table, and how they would have reacted to that, because a lot of times, gosh, well, especially with these parables, like, like you had talked about, I think it was last week, like he's, Jesus would use parables to kind of hold two things together, which he said, to hold two things in contrast, like to say, hey, this is the earthly, this is the earthly reality. And if we hold this up to the heavenly reality, this helps us see how those things overlap. Right. So you almost have this dangerous combination with the Pharisees and religious leaders at the time where not only had they put up these boundaries between them and other people, right, well, it probably elevated how they felt about themselves. It probably elevated just the thoughts in their mind of how these other people aren't as good, aren't as, aren't as worthy that their, their credentials aren't as good. Right. Like they're the ones that are praying in public, like, I'm sure giving in public, like doing all of these things. And I'm sure that Jesus sharing something like this would have been super convicting because there's, there's, I just don't think there's any way to not be convicted in this moment when they're hearing this. No, no. And I think, you know, just the way Jesus paints the kingdom as a banquet really helps us understand, you know, what, what is going on here and, and what he's calling the Pharisees into because I think if we approach it, again, with that scarcity kind of mindset, if we approach itself like the Pharisees did, like, oh, we deserve here to be here and some people

don't deserve to be here, then like the kingdom doesn't become a banquet anymore, right? It becomes a, I mean, it, it becomes work. It becomes like, oh, I have to, I have to do this and I have to make sure to keep these people out and I have to make sure that I get what, what's what I deserve and they get what they deserve, which isn't, which is worse than what I deserve. And, you know, it just becomes about effort and it becomes lifeless and joyless and Jesus, you know, talking about the kingdom as a banquet, it's, it's one of the most continual images in scripture, you know, even in the Old Testament, we read about the kingdom of God as a banquet and, and our relationship with Jesus or with God as a banquet. And I think, you know, if we get into that scarcity mindset about our relationship with God, then we cease to see it that way. You know, we, we start to see it as a grind and rather than, hey, like God has called me into relate and a relationship with him and there is joy and there is peace and there is satisfaction there and there's something I can call other people into, right? Like, if we start viewing it as, as what Kyle's phrase was, what application and not invitation, right? If we start viewing faith as an application, then it becomes something where like, I'm just ticking off boxes and trying to get metals and trying to feel better about myself. But if I see it as invitation that God has invited me into that, then I can see like, Hey, I don't deserve to be here. None of us deserve to be here, but we should call more and more people into this banquet because that's what God wants. Amen. And so again, like you, we have this dangerous combination with the Pharisees and the religious leaders where they feel like they deserve to be at the banquet, but not only do they deserve to be at the banquet, they think probably that they deserve the seat of honor, the highest seats, right? They're the closest. They're the most deserved. They're the most credentialed.

And yet then Jesus tells us parable where the people that were initially invited make up a thousand excuses as to why they can't show up, right? And then in verse 24, he closes us with saying, for I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner. Yeah. Whoa. I'm not sure they necessarily saw it that way. It probably just made them mad. But, but what's the, like, like, what's, like why do you think that, like, he's pretty specific here. Like go at once in the streets and lay in the city and bring the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, right, because he says almost the same thing. In verse 13, before he shares this parable, like when he's actually talking to the people there at this, at this dinner, that when you invite people, do not invite your friends or rich neighbors or relatives, but invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. Like why is Jesus choosing this group of people? Yeah, I mean, I think there is a tendency in all of us to think about, there's a tendency in all of us, I should say, to overlook people, right? There are people we just don't see that for whatever reason, you know, whether it's our own experiences, our own prejudices, whatever, like we, we just do not see people who fall into different categories. And that's probably different for everyone of us, right? Like, like we just don't see or even understand the struggles that they go through. Yeah. And I think part of the reason why Jesus is, is addressing it this way is to help them understand, like, just because you overlook them doesn't mean God doesn't see them, right? It doesn't mean God doesn't have a place for them. It doesn't, you know, just because you don't have a place in your experience or your mind or your heart for them doesn't mean that God doesn't have a place for them. So you know, don't, don't put on God, your own prejudices, don't put on God, you know, your own oversight that, you know, whatever you don't see, he does see. And you know, he wants to call those people into relationship with him.

I think it's interesting, I was reading about this parable earlier this week, when it came to the religious leaders, you know, I think it's, it's Isaiah 25 where Isaiah really begins to talk about, you know, the kingdom of God as a banquet. And Jesus is calling back on this imagery. And Isaiah 25 verse 6, it says, "In Jerusalem, the Lord of heavens armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat. There he will remove the cloud of doom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth. He will swallow up death forever. The sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears. He will remove forever all insults and mockery against his land and people. The Lord has spoken. Like there is this great picture of a feast for all the peoples of the world, right? Like God is calling all peoples to himself. And the religious leaders in Jesus' day, we know this from Jewish tradition. They had the hardest time understanding how God would call anyone other than the Jewish people to this banquet. Yeah. In fact, they like they saw him while he's calling the Gentiles to the feast and there were even some, you know, Jewish teachers in the day who were teaching like, well, the only reason the Gentiles come to the feast is so that God can judge them for what they've done. Ah, gotcha. And so, you know, there was this idea, well, the only, the only thing God would want to have to do with him is judgment. And so I think Jesus is turning their ideas on their head on its head a little bit and saying like, hey, guys, no, like God wants everybody here. God wants this feast to accomplish to to involve all people and bring them in to his table. And you know, it's not a matter of them thinking, or it's not a matter of those gathering around the table who think they have it all together.

The only thing that God's going to look at it on that day is did you accept the invitation of the table? To come to the feast, you're not, you're not going to have to build up your resume. You're not going to have to cover a letter. It's okay. Did you come in? Did you sit at the table that Jesus has provided for us? Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think that's where the beauty of the gospel sometimes is is uncomfortable for us, right? It's, you know, grace is great when like, you know, we need it, you know, grace is hard when we have to give it to someone else, you know, especially when we feel like they don't deserve it. And, and the truth of the gospel is that none of us deserve it. None of us deserve it like, um, and so like with this brain and like is, is Jesus giving like a, a, like a practical, um, like, is he given like a practical way to, to approach life here, but also like a spiritual reality that we need to understand, like with like the two different groups of people. Yeah. I, I think the reality he's getting at, right, is that you are, you are not going to sit at the table because of who you are. Ah, right. You are not going to sit at the table because of what you've done. you're gonna sit at the table because of what Jesus has done. And if you spend your life thinking that you gotta prop yourself up, you are gonna be woefully disappointed when the day of the banquet comes. You're gonna hold this application and be like,

oh look, you gotta let me in, this is all that I've done. When all you're gonna need is an invitation to say no, like I've accepted what Jesus has offered. I have accepted the invitation that he extended on the cross. And I'm only here by his grace. And you mentioned just the grace of God and extending that invitation to us. And I think grace is sometimes something we approach with that scarcity mindset, right? Like God only has so much of that. And Jeremiah tells us in lamentations, like his mercies are new, like every day, right? Like he is always compassionate and gracious. Which means on this day, he has new mercies for new people. Like there are new people who can be, who can come into the feast and be a part of that. And so we don't have to sit there and worry about like, hey, these people are gonna take my spot at the banquet. You know, like God has built a big enough table. - That's great way to put it. - He has built a big enough table for all people who would come, who would be there. And so we don't have to worry about losing our spot because someone else is there. You know, all we have to worry about is accepting the invitation as it's been offered to us. - That is so good.

I love that. Especially along the lines of that scarcity mindset you talked about, is that there, like someone else is not going to take our seats, right? Like that's not a concern. - Yeah, and I thought about that, you know, Sunday night, I have a Sunday night small group and I sit at my kitchen table and I was thinking about Kyle's, you know, illustration of the table in his house. And I was thinking, you know, when my wife and I bought our kitchen table, we had, it was just me and her and we bought a table with six chairs around it and we have four kids. So all of our chairs are filled now. And it's not, you know, our table is very finite, right? Like if someone else is going to sit there like, me and my wife are one of the kids is going to have to get up and you're going to lose your spot. But at God's table, like the table just keeps getting bigger. You wonder those, the little slats you can add to your table. Like my parents have a table like that. You just keep making the table bigger. Like the, like the leaves. - Leaves, yeah, the leaves fall. - There you go, it all comes back. - Yeah. Now, like the leaves are, like God's table has infinite leaves. Like we'll just keep building that thing out until everyone's seated. - Yeah, because it's almost as if, you know,

Kyle had reminded us that like, hey, until our final breath or until Jesus comes back, like that invitation is open, right? That invitation is open. Like if we've, especially if we listened to this last message, if we've read the Bible, if we've had that, that pulling on our heart to give our life to Christ, like God is pursuing us. And it's not that if we get to the end of our life that it's like, okay, well now God's just going to put someone else on our seat. Well, that's not it. Like it may be more of like, well, he's taken away that seat because we didn't show up to the banquet. - Yeah. - We never like, like we may have kind of considered sending an RSVP in, right? Not literally from the sermon, but like in that analogy where it's like, you may have considered sending in that RSVP, but at the end of the day, like we never showed up. - Right. - Like we never accepted that free gift, right? Of coming to the banquet, of sitting at the table of the king. And we see that so many times throughout the New Testament is that like, man, like if we don't put ourself in the place of recognizing that the only thing

that will fulfill us is a relationship with the one who is putting on the banquet, we're going to miss out on the greatest experience we could ever have. And the alternative to that, which is what we saw last week, is that it's an eternity apart from that feast. And we don't want to be a part of that either. - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, we talk about the inversions and the parable a lot. The idea that, you know, the first to be last to last to be first, like one of the inversions in it in a sense, and I'll probably say this imperfectly, so bear with me here, like it's not difficult for us to think about like, oh, our sin could keep us from that banquet, right? That's easy for us to think about. Like, oh, I could, you know, maybe I'm just not invited or maybe I've turned out of the invitation. My sin is going to keep me away from the banquet. It is difficult for us to think about your righteousness can keep you away from that banquet too, right? Like, you can be so sold on your own goodness. You can be so sold on your own resume that you miss out on the fact that that stuff isn't going to get you there. And I think that's one of the great inversions here or who think they have it all together, and saying like you are further from the kingdom

than you realize, because you've been trying to do it by yourself. And I think that's part of the inversion of this parable of the great banquet, is Jesus just saying like, yeah, you know what? At the end of the day, there are some people who sin, they haven't accepted Jesus, it's gonna keep them away from the banquet. There are some people who their righteousness is gonna keep them away from the banquet because they couldn't accept Jesus because they wanted to do it themselves. - Mm, that's a good word. And that's where we'll kinda land the plane and close today is that there are maybe two groups of people that we wanna encourage. The first one would be the person out there watching this right now, that it may be you, that doesn't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And what we would encourage you with is that the invitation for you to follow him, to come to him, to surrender, to lay everything down before him and to make him your Lord and Savior, that invitation is open, right? His grace, His mercy is new for you every day, right? He's not taking that away. He wants you right now to make that decision. And it can be as simple as coming before him in prayer right now and asking him to forgive you

of your sin, to fill you with his spirit, to walk in the newness of life, knowing that you're a new creation and having other people come around you to help follow him and take some of those important next steps. But then there's also the second group, right? Where you may have already been following Jesus, right? You may have fallen into this trap like I can so many times where it's like, well, because I've been following Jesus for a long time and because I know this about the Bible or because I know this or that, that's like, well, of course I would be there. Of course, I would be there. And like Brandon said, like sometimes our own self-righteousness can force us to miss the banquet, not that we don't have an invitation that's already been accepted, but that it's that we think we can do this on our own, right? And so for those of us that deal with that, I would encourage you to spend every single day thinking about how do I spend my time? How do I spend my time? Am I spending it reminding myself through scripture that I am in desperate need of God and desperate need of him? Are we spending everyday focusing on being thankful that we're even invited to the banquet? Because Brandon, that's maybe the thing

that I have to remind myself this week is that gosh, like I don't even need to be worrying about where the seat is at the table. I need to focus more on just being thankful that the person who is throwing the banquet would even invite me. - Yeah, no, and I think you hit on a very important point there is like, I think one of the, you asked, I think your first question was about what realities is Jesus telling us here. The reality of the matter is like there are no bad seats in the kingdom of God, right? There are no bad seats on that day 'cause none of us are gonna sit around and be like, oh man, like I wish I was closer to Moses. - Right. - No, like we're just, I think when that day comes when we actually gather around the table, we're just gonna be in awe that everybody is there but I think most of all, we're gonna be in awe that we're there. Like, oh God, God saved me. Jesus saved me even in the midst of my own sinfulness. And now look, look, I'm just glad to be here and be standing around the table with everybody. - Amen, amen, and that. And I think another point in scripture, Jesus reminds his disciples as they were worried that he was about to go away. And I think maybe it wasn't maybe at the last supper,

right, where they're getting a little concerned about him about to die and being handed over and arrested and crucified and he reminds them like, hey, like where I am going, like I'm gonna prepare a place for you. Like I am going to prepare a place for you and where I'm going it has many rooms, right? Someone's not gonna take your room, like it is prepared for you and pando family, whatever that ends up looking like, whatever that banquet looks like, whatever that room looks like, whatever eternity looks like, we can trust that it is gonna be good and not because the experience is awesome or the things are awesome. It's because our God is awesome, right? Because Jesus will be there, God will be there. That's why we can trust that our sin has been fully taken care of, right? Jesus died for you. He died for me, the blood that he poured out on the cross was sufficient, sufficient for what you have done, And this is one other thing I'd promise you. The enemy will spend your entire life trying to convince you that is not true. And that is a lie straight from hell. But what we find truth is in the Bible. It's in scripture that reminds us that Jesus has prepared a place for us, that his sacrifice was once and for all, for you, for me,

for Brandon, for all of us that are watching this today, for all of us in front of the camera, watching on a tablet behind the camera. And we're grateful that we get to be on this journey of following after Jesus with you. And so, Brandon, any final thoughts on sermon series? Kingdom is real. No, I mean, I love this series. I love any time I think we overlook the reality of the kingdom, right? That we so often think about the kingdom as something that is coming later. And I love the reminder that the kingdom is here now, right? The kingdom is here, it is spreading, it is still coming. It is yet to be fully revealed, but that we can live in the reality of our place at the table today, if we just accept that invitation Jesus has for us. So good, and such an encouragement. And we're encouraged every week that you click on this podcast and it lets us know by your viewership that this is hopefully interesting to you in making a difference in your walk with Christ. And like normal, we would love for you to write us here at Southeast, let us know how we can be praying for you. You can always find the address to our church in the description of our weekend services and would love for you to do that. And also, if you have questions that you'd like for us to answer about the Bible or what God may think about,

something that you're walking through, we would love to write you back and help discuss that or maybe even here in the podcast. - For sure, for sure. - For sure, for sure. - Y'all, but thanks again for being with us today and we will see you next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]