The Party You Don't Want to Miss
14 January 2021
The Party You Don’t Want to Miss Matthew 22
I want to ask you this morning two things.
Do you think it is possible to forget how wicked it is to reject Jesus?
We have good friends who don’t follow Jesus, and they’re nice and kind and rational …
Do you think it is possible to forget how wicked it is to reject Jesus?
A second question is:
Do you think it is possible to forget how wonderful it is to belong to him? To forget how astounding it is that we have been invited to the banquet.
Keep those thoughts in your mind as we look at this passage together.
We have been working our way through some of the parables that Jesus spoke, and we have come to the last one for the series.
Just to help get your bearings:-
In chapter 21 Jesus is riding into the lion’s den. He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey.
The lions are there in the form of the Chief priests and the Elders of the Law, and make no mistake they want him dead.
Well maybe if Jesus is quiet, they won’t notice him … there are a lot of people around.
Jesus quietly walks into the temple and turns over the tables of the money changers and rebukes them all … for making His house not a house of prayer but a den of robbers.
So much for not being noticed.
After that, the Chief priests and the Elders of the Law challenge Jesus’ authority, and he tells three parable of which this is the third.
Jesus says vs 1
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.
It is a glorious moment and the king’s desires is to see his son honoured in all the kingdom.
In Jesus’ day it was not unheard of on such occasions as this for the king not hold a feast for his people but rather raise a new tax.
This king, however, does not seek taxes from his subjects. He asks no dowry for his son, rather he makes the marriage memorable not by demands but by a banquet.
Nothing is sought for from his subjects other than they share in this glorious celebration and they come and enjoy and delight and partake in the honour of the son.
The King sends his servants vs 3
… to call those who were invited to the wedding feast,
It is time to come.
In Jesus’ day you sent out two invitations for a wedding, the first was to invite people to the wedding, and the second was to say: “It’s on now, come.”
This was the second invitation.
It is a wonderful privilege to be invited to a wedding, how much more the wedding of the Prince?
I imagine if we were to ever receive such an invitation we would be more than a little excited.
A wedding held by the King of Kings.
I imagine if that was to happen we would feel that it was one of the greatest moments in our lives.
We have said before, that when Mary Donaldson married Crown Prince Fredrick of Denmark in 2004, it was a big day. As she came from Hobart, some of the guests were invited from Mary’s friends. The most ordinary people suddenly find themselves at the wedding of a Prince.
This is an extraordinary invitation. For the rest of your life you would speak of the day.
It is not a small thing to come to Jesus and belong to his kingdom of God.
That is what the picture is.
Sometimes we forget don’t we.
Just how wonderful privilege we are.
The generosity of the King, and the privilege of honouring the Son. It really is a staggering invitation.
He says: “I have provided everything you need.
Come and enjoy, let’s honour my Son.”
So the invitation goes out, but all the people the king had invited don’t want to come.
3 he sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ 5 But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.
They don’t even come up with excuses, they just say I don’t want to come.
If you ever wanted an illustration of the utter wickedness of the sinful heart this was it.
Even after they reject the first invitation and the King send another, they just say, I don’t want to come and they despise his patience with them.
I wonder if you found the next two bits shocking?
Vs 7
7 The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
I can’t remember who I invited to my wedding and if there was anyone who just didn’t come. If you didn’t come you missed a great day.
You would be surprised if, when you didn’t come, I burnt your house down.
I am not the great King however.
To say no to this wedding is to mock His kindness, spurn his generosity and reject the honour of his Son.
The King is very angry, and rightly so.
The second surprising thing the King does is in
Vs 8
8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ 10 And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Let’s just pause here for a moment and consider what this story is about.
I think it is a story with two layers.
In the first instances it has to be a story about Jesus coming to God’s people the Jews, and them refusing to have him as their Messiah.
That is exactly what is happening with the Chief Priests and the Elders of the Law.
None of them accept him as their God and King.
As a consequence the invitation to follow Jesus spills out to the rest of the world. (The Gentiles).
It is because the Jews rejected this invitation, that people like you and me can get into God’s kingdom. It is like we get in though ‘the back door’.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind coming in the back door as long as I am in for goodness’ sake. At the first level, that is what the story is about.
Jesus comes to his own people (the Jews), his own people rejected him, but as many as receive him, to them he gives the authority to have eternal life … to be with him forever.
The story runs deeper than that as well.
At the same time, it is a story about you and God, and it is about how you may respond to a gracious invitation from a gracious God who says come, come for all things are now ready.
The God who sends his Son into the world, the bright image of the Glory of God the Father.
All of a sudden in that one action, God makes it crystal clear what he is like.
We know that he is powerful and gracious and full of compassion – because that is what Jesus is like.
He says to you and he says to me, “Come to Jesus, come to him as your King, honour him as your king, come to him saying sorry for ignoring him and there is forgiveness. Come and be welcomed into the kingdom of God.”
What King is God? He is the kind that says come, and without money.
Celebrate and honour my Son.
He says come to my Son, and seek his forgiveness because all things are now ready. There is the invitation!
You can’t read the story and not ask have you responded to that invitation?
Christianity is basically uncomplicated there are only two responses that you can make aren’t there? You can say yes or you can say no, and that is what happened in the story.
The excuses are terrible. They don’t even try and make them. They just go off to their farm or business.
They completely reject the kindness of the King and rush to the mundane things.
They are too busy with work than for Jesus.
They are too busy with life.
To interested in the kid’s soccer game or mowing the lawn.
All just didn’t want to go, and those were the nice ones.
The others mistreat the servants who bring the invitation.
In the end they all reject the King and Son.
If you are in the category of people who have said no … can I ask you what might your reason be?
If you say, I haven’t got enough information, I really need to find out more about the claims of Jesus … if that is you, can I really urge you to follow up on that.
I wonder if that is in fact the only good excuse.
Often excuses sound good while they’re just in your mind … and they don’t sound so good however when you say them out loud.
Like … “we can’t know that God is there” … You know, I am not sure that is a good. The evidence is all against you not believing he is there.
It is not as if God has not shown that he is there by sending his Son.
He has shown that he is more than worthy of your whole life. He made you for goodness sake, you owe him everything.
It might be that you believe your life is too busy.
You need to go to your farm or your business.
I have a feeling that excuse only sounds good until you say it out loud.
I am too busy to follow after Jesus, who made me and owns me and too whom I own everything.
I am too busy to go to this wedding because I need to weed the garden.
You will never receive a more wonderful invitation than this.
Can I say, every time you say no to the invitation that comes from God, you get better at it.
The first invitation came they people and they rejected it … it was only easier to say no the second time.
Let me ask you how good are you at saying no?
When was the last time you had to think about it?
Does it take you very long today to go over your excuse or does it leap straight to life?
If that is you, that is a sign you are getting dangerously good at it.
You know one day, you will be able to sit through and entire service and not a word will enter your mind.
I want to say, take care won’t you.
While you still have an opportunity, on a day like today, when you have received another invitation, wouldn’t this be a good day to say yes to the gracious invitation of God?
Well the great tragedy is that despite the wonderful open invitation of God, people continue to say no.
In spite of the kindness of God, people treat him as if it is not a gracious invitation.
The consequences of that are appalling.
Does it really shock you that the King is angry and destroyed those murderers and burned their city?
Or
casts them into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
You might not like God being angry, but what do you think you would do?
If your only Son had come into the world to show the glory of God and the people he had come to thought he was the greatest of all jokes, wouldn’t you be angry?
Do you think God should be any less?
Do you think it is possible to forget how wicked it is to reject Jesus?
Don’t ignore this warning will today will you.
There is another side to the story and it is a wonderful side.
9 Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find … both good and bad …
…and in they come.
The wedding hall is full of guests.
It is like the beggars are all streaming into the Sheraton hotel in Sydney, it must be the strangest sight, the owner is welcoming them all in and the doorman is not allowed to throw them out even though none of them belong.
They know they don’t deserve to be there and the grins on their faces are so wide.
They know they don’t deserve it but they have made it in. They heard the invitation and said I would not miss this for anything.
Who are they in this story?
Well they are sinful people who know they need forgiveness and they stop pretending otherwise and they come to Jesus.
Just imagine God will forgive me and take me on again.
Could you believe that, could you believe it.
They are glad to come, people just like us who say yes.
Yes to God as being our God
People who say yes to the death of Jesus for me
and don’t pretend they don’t need to be forgiven.
People who say yes to the gracious invitation of Jesus.
Do you think it is possible to forget how wonderful it is to belong to him? What a good picture to burn into our minds.
You know if you want to stay one night at the Bvlgari Resort in Dubai, one of the 10 most exotic resort in the world, it will cost you $50 000 a night, $700 000 for a two week stay.
Don’t you think coming to this wedding feast of Jesus is like being a beggar welcomed for free at the Bvlgari.
You can hardly believe its possible to be there … and yet you are.
Let’s not forget how wonderful it is to belong to this King.
The King who says come in and celebrate the Son with me.
Don’t let a day go by when you don’t rejoice.
Well I guess the story could have ended there, but we have one final act in the story, and it is a warning.
We come to the banquet hall and the King arrives.
It is an interesting wedding because the King himself has provided the perfect robes for the guests to wear.
He finds one man there who is not dressed appropriately for the wedding, he is not wearing the wedding clothes provided by the king.
The king speaks to him in verse 12
‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’
The man says nothing. There is nothing to say, he tried to come into the King’s banquet thinking his own clothes would be good enough.
The King had provided the perfect clothes for his guests to wear, but this man believed that he did not need what the King had freely provided.
It is a picture of those who seek to come before God in their own righteousness rather than God’s.
You try and come before God, thinking that you are good enough for God, that in and of yourself you are worthy to stand before the King clothed in a righteousness that is your own.
Let me put it another way.
God himself provides the righteousness you need to be at the wedding. It is a robe that is spotless and stainless, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.
You don’t need your own righteousness, it would never be enough anyway.
We only walk into the King’s presence with that righteousness that comes from Christ and through Christ.
Have you ever been invited to a better wedding?
There you have it, there are only two ways to go.
To a God who invites us to come and have friendship with him to a God who invites us to have our sins forgiven to a God who invites us to have eternal life and gives us all we need.
There are only two responses that you can make. You can say yes, or you can say no.
I suppose you can say, I’ll delay, but I think that is a foolish one don’t you think?
If you are going, rejoice won’t you.
If you’re not going, it is not too late to change ships while there is still time and the invitation is still there.
Let’s pray