Goal

To hear what Jesus is saying to each of us in this parable

Explanation

1. The Banquet is God’s wonderful kingdom
   • Free, undeserved, delightful, satisfying, fulfilling all our longings
2. Those Invited are everyone who hears the Gospel
   • Some respond and some don’t
3. There is a surprising ending because it’s not who you would expect at a banquet
   • The people in God’s kingdom are often not those whom you would have expected

The Parable of the Banquet

1. God’s grace is amazing and totally undeserved
2. God is looking for those who will respond, and who will value his banquet
   • They won’t think all the trivial earthly things that surround them are more important
3. The composition in the Kingdom in Jesus’ time was very different to what was expected
   • Similarly today, God is building his kingdom often from unlikely people

A Surprising Invitation to a Banquet

1. God’s grace is amazing and totally undeserved
2. God is looking for those who will respond, and who will value his banquet
3. The composition in the Kingdom in Jesus’ time was very different to what was expected

Luke 14 – Unlikely Guests

21. …‘Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’
22. Then the servant said, ‘Sir, what you instructed has been done, and there is still room.’
23. So the master said to his servant, ‘Go out to the highways and country roads and urge people to come in, so that my house will be filled.
24. For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will taste my banquet!’ ”

1 Samuel 22:1–2

1. David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him.
2. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him.
   And he became captain over them. And there were with him about four hundred men.

1 Corinthians 1:26–29

26. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
27. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
28. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
29. so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.