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Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to our 24th week of looking
through the book of Matthew. That means we're in chapter 22 this week. We're
going to see Jesus interacting with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the
Herodians, the religious leaders of that day throughout this week.

My prayer for you as we walk through this, as He confronts hypocrisy and
legalism and some of the struggles that they had with their religious life, my
prayer is that God uses it to open prison doors for us, to get us into places of
grace, places where we, instead of living with judgmentalism or legalism, can
really live with a sense of the grace and the power of Jesus in our lives.
That's why these scriptures are here, to teach you and I how to live, not just
so we can think bad of the Pharisees that lived a long time ago because we've
got a lot of struggles today too, but to think through how can I live the kind
of life that Jesus has called me to live. So here in verse one, Jesus begins to
tell a parable again and this one is directed not to everyone but specifically
to some of the religious leaders.

In verse one, Jesus spoke to them again in parable saying, "The kingdom of
heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his
servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but
they refused to come. And then he sent some more servants and he said, 'Tell
those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner.

My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered and everything is ready. Come to
the wedding banquet. '" Now as we walk through this parable, we're going to see
some truths for your life and my life today about God's banquet, what God wants
to do in our lives, and also you and I and the responsibility that we have
towards what God wants to do in our lives.

We're going to see four things in this parable and the first thing we see is
that God invites. God invites you to a wonderful, joyful celebration. It's this
wedding banquet.

The Christian life, the life of grace is this joyful celebration that God's
inviting you to. Now I do understand that in this world as we walk through life,
we're going to face the struggles and difficulties and trials and temptations of
this world. There is no doubt about that.

But we are invited to this joyful celebration that we begin in this world and
we're going to enjoy for all of eternity. I do understand that to live the life
of faith, it is a discipline to live the life of faith. There's no doubt about
it.

But it is not a joy-less discipline. It's a joyful discipline. It's not a
discipline of sorrow that we live as believers in Christ.

It is a discipline of joy. And so one of the invitations here is we see what
we're invited to, to this wedding banquet is to live a life of authentic joy.
That's the kind of life that we are to live as followers of Jesus.

Now there is a life of fake, of phony joy. That pretends that you're never
discouraged, you're never depressed. Real joy admits the discouragement like the
apostle Paul did.

It admits the discouragement. It gives that discouragement to God and then
watches God turn it to joy as you recognize the eternal way that he's working
even in the midst of the discouragement or the depression. God invites you to
live in this joyful celebration beginning now all the way to eternity.

Second truth in this parable is you can miss God's invitation. You can miss
God's invitation when you get caught up in your own business. Verses 5 to 7,
"But they paid no attention and went off, one to his field, another to his
business.

The rest seized his servants and mistreated and killed them. The king was
enraged. He sent his army and he destroyed those murderers who burned their
city.

" So here is this joyful invitation and people are rejecting it. And clearly it
says here, "One to his field, one to his business. " They just got caught up in
what they were doing.

There were others who actually went beyond that and seized the servants and
killed the servants. But I want to focus on those who just got caught up in
their own business. William Barclay says, "It's a tragedy of life that so often
the second bests shut out the bests.

And many times in life, because we're pursuing something that's good, business,
family, a wonderful hobby, we're pursuing that thing, we shut off what God wants
to be doing in our lives. " I want you to notice something carefully. It says,
"One to his field, another to his business.

" The question is, whose field are you working in today? The question is, whose
business are you working on today? For them, they may have had a religious life,
I don't know, but it was his field, his business.

Everything apart from God was entirely apart from God. You and I as followers of
Jesus Christ, there is no our field. It's all his field.

It's all God's field. And when I work in God's field, when I work in God's
business every day of my life, whatever job I might have, whatever role I might
have, whatever school I might be in, when I recognize he's a part of all of it,
then I won't miss his invitation. Because I realize it's all his business.

It's all his field. That's how you make sure you don't miss out on God's
invitation. You realize all of life and all of eternity is in his hands.

You can miss God's invitation. Third truth in this parable as you walk through
it is, you can let everyone hear God's invitation. You can let everyone else
hear God's invitation of grace.

Listen to what happens in verses 8 to 10. Then he said to his servants, "The
wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to
the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you can find.

" So the servants went out into the streets and they gathered all the people
they could find both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Invite anybody that you can find. Once you've been invited, your role is to
invite other people.

Your role is to pass along the invitation of the king, the invitation of God to
this kind of life that he wants us to live. Those of us who've been invited
don't decide that now we're in, we're not going to invite anybody else. No, you
make it your job to invite everybody.

Now, you don't make it your job to try to decide who to invite. Well, they look
like they should get in. I don't know about them though.

No, you go out to the street corners. You make it your job to invite anyone you
can find. Now, we're going to see in a minute that God is the one who chooses.

God is the one who brings people in based on our invitation. But our job is to
invite anyone and everyone that we can find. That's being obedient to God.

Go to the street corners. Go anywhere and everywhere. Let everyone hear the good
news of grace.

Once you've experienced it, the joyful celebration, you start sharing it with
other people. There's a fourth truth as you walk through this parable, and the
fourth truth is you accept God's invitation on his terms, not your terms. Now,
this one's addressed particularly to the religious leaders Jesus was talking to
because they were trying to accept God's invitation on their terms the way they
wanted it to work.

And Jesus says, "No, it doesn't work that way. " Listen to what happens in
verses 11 to 14. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man
there who was not wearing wedding clothes.

"Friend," he asked, "how did you get in here without wearing wedding clothes? "
The man was speechless. And then the king told the attendants, "tie him hand and
foot and throw him outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth, for many are invited, but few are chosen.

" So Jesus in this picture says here's someone who doesn't deserve to be there.
Now, what are the wedding clothes that you and I wear to deserve to be in God's
presence? Well, it's certainly not the good works that we can do.

The Bible says very clearly those are filthy rags. That's not where you want to
appear in God's presence, just wearing your filthy rags, the best that you could
do. No, the wedding clothes we wear are the clothes of grace.

It is God's grace at work in our lives that allows you and I to stand in God's
presence. And Jesus says in the end, the truth of the matter is many are
invited, but few are chosen. The truth is God chooses.

God chooses by His grace and brings us into His grace. But God's choice, you and
I get to see that choice in the way that we respond to His invitation. And I
don't know the mystery of how the Holy Spirit works and how we respond, but I do
know we see God's choice in the way that we respond to His invitation.

Our response doesn't control God's choice. We just see God's choice in the way
that we respond. So that's why we tell everyone, because you never know who's
going to respond and how they're going to respond.

Now, the truth of the matter is telling God how He has to choose you. These are
the clothes you have to accept me in. I showed up in these clothes.

You may not like them, but God, if you love me, you're going to have to accept
me in these clothes. I'm coming with my works. I'm coming with my religious
actions.

I'm coming with this list of rules and regulations that I've kept. Whatever it
is, now you have to accept me, God. Telling God how He has to choose you is a
sign that you're stuck on your choice, not His choice.

Now, get caught up in His choice. The fact that He has chosen you and invited
you in by grace, by grace. When you get caught up in His choice, you recognize
that His choice is a choice of grace at the cross.

It goes out to everyone and anyone, everyone, you can respond to that choice. I
know some people who, in fact, I had a friend once who said to me, "I think I'm
supposed to be a Christian, but I'm afraid I'm not one of the chosen. " I said
to him, "Well, the very idea that you're asking if you're one of the chosen
shows me that you are probably one of the chosen, because those who are not one
of the chosen don't even think enough about God to wonder if they're one of the
chosen.

So don't worry about whether God has chosen you. Accept the wonderful choice of
grace that He's put into your life and then share it with other people, anybody
and everybody out on the street corners. Let's pray for both of those things in
these next few moments.

First, as we pray, just say, "God, thank you that you have clothed me with
grace, and by grace I can stand in your presence now and into all eternity. "
And instead of me having to worry about what clothes I can put together to wear
to stand in your presence, "God, you provided the clothing, and I just have to
trust you enough to put it on. I have to trust you enough to accept the
forgiveness that Jesus has given.

Thank you for grace. Lord, I want to hold it to myself. Show me what street
corner to go out on.

Show me what call to make, what note to write, what email or text to send. Show
me where I can share the good news that the celebration is for some friend, some
person I've just met. Show me today, I pray.

In Jesus' name, I pray this. Amen. Join us tomorrow.

We're going to watch how Jesus builds our faith as He answers some questions
from the religious leaders.