A Surprising Invitation to a Banquet

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Goal

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

The Banquet is God’s wonderful kingdom
- Free, undeserved, delightful, satisfying, fulfilling all our longings
Those Invited are everyone who hears the Gospel
- Some respond and some don’t
  even though it is such a wonderful offer
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

God’s grace is amazing and totally undeserved
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
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

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

…‘Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’
Then the servant said, ‘Sir, what you instructed has been done, and there is still room.’
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.
For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will taste my banquet!’ ”

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.
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.

They ended up being the “mighty men” who were the pillars of the kingdom
- What a team!
- Did Jesus have an amazing team?
God turned a man called “Legion”, a demon-possessed man, into an evangelist
Can God still do that today?
- God can take the most unpromising people and make them into the pillars of the church
Story of Gladys Aylward
Story of John Bunyan (What was he famous for?) a tinker.
A number of years ago we held a prayer meeting to launch the little group that would one day become Newlife Church
- We rented St. Peter’s church hall, at Carlton & Sherbourne
One of the themes that came out of that prayer meeting was that God would build Newlife church from people who were considered nothing by society
- God would build in a way that humanly would be impossible
- People would look at Newlife church and say “that must be supernatural because you can’t build from those kind of people”
- You need movers and shakers, the dynamic and powerful!
I am excited at what God is doing and will do
- Story of Betel
- “When you are too weak to steal, come to us and we will look after you”
Do you want to be part of a supernatural kingdom, built in an impossible way?
- You have to step up to God’s call!
- Stop telling yourself you are nothing and can’t do anything
- “I can do all things through him who strengthens me!”
Many people here who need to step out in faith that God can use them mightily
- Is that you?

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.
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;
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.