The Radical Invitation

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Hey, I want to invite you to the next More Faith, More Life podcast. It is life changing. It’s going to tell you what’s being said to you today and the calling that’s on your life to compel people to come into the kingdom of God. It’s up next. Don’t miss it.

0:00:14 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

0:00:39 – (Steve Gray): When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more. More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and, and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

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0:01:26 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone, and welcome to another More Faith More Life podcast. I’m Pastor Steve Gray. I’m here with my wife Kathy, excited to talk about the great things of God. And we, we decided a few weeks ago that we would do a whole section on the parables of Luke. How important is that? Because what are people getting in podcasts? What are they getting in sermons in churches? Not much Bible, right?

0:01:54 – (Steve Gray): Because, you know, both times when we use John the Baptist who came before Jesus and then Jesus, both of them declared went preaching the gospel. Nope. You ask people what the gospel is and they might tell you, but they did not preach the gospel. They preached the gospel of the kingdom, kingdom life, kingdom thoughts. And a lot of times what they preached was contrary to the compromised culture of religion, which is what we have today.

0:02:31 – (Steve Gray): But people don’t know if you just preach the compromised sermons or you don’t preach the gospel of the kingdom. You preach the gospel of humanism. You preach the gospel of we hope you have. We preach the gospel of self-respect or, you know, self-esteem, or we preach the gospel of feeling valuable about yourself. That’s not the gospel. And it’s not even the gospel just to preach about. If you die today, you go to heaven. Because they preach the gospel of the kingdom, of what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to live.

0:03:02 – (Steve Gray): Right now after you die, what’s there to learn? What’s there to do? Already done. This is the gospel of the kingdom. And that’s why we’re. We’re going to pick up the parables. Obviously, I can’t do all of them, but as you said last week or the week before, I’ve been doing the parables all around the world.

0:03:20 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:03:21 – (Steve Gray): And I was going to say. How do I say this? But they’re done correctly.

0:03:26 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:03:26 – (Steve Gray): With years of practice of preaching them, studying them, we’re going to always include the original audience. When you study parables, as I said, another week, you need to come down to what is this really about? The one or two things. You don’t want to just take everything that’s said and run off and preach a sermon on it. Like it narrows down to one or two folk, the focus of one or two points. And then we need to preach it. First of all, all the parables need to be preached in context of the original audience.

0:03:59 – (Steve Gray): What did the original Jewish audience. Jesus was speaking almost 100% to Jews. There are exceptions. What did they think when they heard it, and what did he want them to think? What did he want them to feel, and what did he want them to do? Then we take it and we can apply it to us today, but not before. So we’re going to do that each time we do it. So I picked another one today. I skipped a little bit ahead from last time.

0:04:29 – (Steve Gray): And we’re going to talk about the parable of the great banquet. So if you wouldn’t mind. I like this. I’ve been in some churches that. I’ve never done it this way in church myself. But they have a reader and a preacher, and the reader reads the passage and then the preacher preaches it. And when he’s made his statement on the passage, the reader reads the next passage and they go line by line. Very. I. I’ve never preached it that way. I go line by line, but I’ve never had a reader.

0:04:56 – (Steve Gray): But you’re going to be my reader today. All right, so this is from Luke, chapter 14.

0:05:01 – (Kathy Gray): 14, yeah. Starting with verse 16.

0:05:03 – (Steve Gray): Okay, let’s start.

0:05:05 – (Kathy Gray): All right. Okay. Jesus replied, a certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.

0:05:14 – (Steve Gray): Okay, are you ready to. Okay. Okay. Let’s Go with the culture first. Okay, he prepared a banquet and invited many guests. In their day, they did double invitations because it says he’s preparing. Well, these were big banquets and they, you know, they didn’t have microwaves, so they had, they, they, they went and invited people. And it was there when you invited them. And if they said yes, that was their rsvp.

0:05:43 – (Steve Gray): That’s so they would know how many to cook for, how many can attend, how many do we need servants to help us out? So once you said yes, the, that locked it in. Okay, so read it again.

0:05:56 – (Kathy Gray): All right, so Jesus said a certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.

0:06:03 – (Steve Gray): All right?

0:06:04 – (Kathy Gray): After that, okay, at the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited come for everything is now ready.

0:06:14 – (Steve Gray): All right, so in their culture, this was, I invited you, you said yes, I prepared it. Now I give you the second invitation because nobody knew when it would be ready because you know, how long does it take to get it? So everybody wait. But you said yes. So he said, okay, you said you’d come. I want you to know the banquet is now ready. So that means everything’s cooked, everything’s set, all the servants, everything’s set for this huge banquet based on the number of people that said yes.

0:06:42 – (Steve Gray): And then what happens?

0:06:43 – (Kathy Gray): All right, but they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, I’ve just bought a field and I must go and see it. Please excuse me. Another said, I’ve just bought five yoke of oxen and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me. Still another said, I just got married, so I can’t come. And then the servant came back and reported this to his master.

0:07:07 – (Steve Gray): This was very, very insulting in their culture. So as I said, listen. How the audience would listen, they would listen and, and in, you know, these people were not so indoctrinated with news and Internet and you know, the cable TV and all that. These are simpler, simpler minded people, that this was very serious. This, they don’t get to hear stories all the time. They don’t have good parable teachers all the time.

0:07:31 – (Steve Gray): And so when they describe this, they would go, they would be like, what was this, this is very insulting, isn’t it? And they would agree that it would be very, very insulting. We don’t know if the audience, how many were Pharisees, how many religious, how many were servants, how many disciples? But to everybody, except now we need to realize what was Jesus really saying? Okay, was he really talking about A banquet? Is he really throwing a party?

0:07:59 – (Steve Gray): And now he’s insulted because they made these. And by the way, Jesus made up flimsy excuses on purpose to make it even more insulting. What, you got married so you can’t come? Why don’t you bring your wife? I mean, you know, you. You bought oxen and now you got to try them out. Well, you already bought them. Why didn’t you try them out before? You see, it’s all. It’s just terrible. Okay, so what is he really saying? He’s saying, look, for centuries, you Jewish people will apply to them first. The Jewish people and the religious people is who he’s really hitting. The controlling religious, not just Jewish people, the controlling people who are controlling religion of their day. But anyway, for centuries, you said, send the Messiah. We want a messiah who will come and restore the glory of Israel. All right?

0:08:48 – (Steve Gray): Now Israel has a messiah, which they said they wanted, who would come and restore Israel and bring the glory back to Israel. All the things that they wanted Jesus to do. But now, after centuries of saying, we want a messiah, we want a messiah, come and restore Israel. Now Jesus is there and they’re full of excuses. They’re full of excuses.

0:09:08 – (Kathy Gray): That’s really horrible.

0:09:09 – (Steve Gray): All right, yeah. Now let’s back up a little bit because all of these people in the parable. Now we’re going back to the parable for a second. We went back to history, okay? The context of it was Jesus, the Messiah is there. They said they wanted one. Now they’re making excuses. And it’s basically the religious leaders, they’re not following through with what they said. So they’ve been invited, but they don’t want to come now.

0:09:36 – (Steve Gray): So there’s an insult. All right, but let’s go back to the idea. Here’s the important thing. These are all known people. When he made the invitation in the parable, which also reflects on Israel, these are all known people. So these would be Covenant Jews who know God. All right, These are people in the parable who know the person who’s inviting them. Okay? So everybody that’s invited up to this point in the parable are known people.

0:10:04 – (Steve Gray): That’s where we can start to apply it a little bit to us too, that the invitations and the things that Jesus is inviting us to, that we said when we received Jesus, we said, I’ll serve you. You know, I’m going to serve you. Take my life. I love you, Lord. I believe you are the. I believe you’re saving me now. Forgive me of all my sins. I’m going to go out all the things that we committed ourselves to that we’re going to be, we’re going to go, we’re going to do for you.

0:10:32 – (Steve Gray): Okay, These are all known people. So in our culture, mine, these would be Christians that are being invited to a higher place, a banqueting lifestyle, a closer banqueting relation, a close knowing relationship. You’re invited to a special place to come and sit down in the kingdom of God and be a guest and a servant. We are both, you know, were guests and were servants all at the same time. So these are all known people.

0:11:04 – (Steve Gray): They’re known Jew inviting them. So what happens then? The people that are known. He invited known people. He’s inviting known people today. What happened? They made flimsy excuses like people make today. They said, I got married, I got oxen, I got a job, I got kids, I had another baby, I’m too weak, I got to make some money. For. The list goes on and on of why people become nominal. Nothing excuse filled Christians, just like excuse filled Jews did the same thing. Not all of them and not all Christians do it, but it is generally across Israel and Jerusalem particularly.

0:11:45 – (Steve Gray): It was being led by leaders who were leading the people this way. And in Christianity we are being led by leaders that are continually making us nominal because they don’t offer us anything else. Okay, so what does the guy who threw the banquet, what’s his response?

0:12:00 – (Kathy Gray): So then the owner of the house became angry, angry and ordered his servant go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.

0:12:16 – (Steve Gray): So we can adjust that we know that Jesus would never really get angry. So in the parable, in the parable, Jesus is the guy throwing the banquet.

0:12:25 – (Kathy Gray): That’s right.

0:12:26 – (Steve Gray): I’ll leave it with that. And so he says, get the next move then. Okay, this is what I’m going to do then. I’m going to go out and invite the unknown. Go out and invite the uninvited. Go and invite the unknown. Now we go back to the idea of who are the people? Read again. Who does he say to go get?

0:12:42 – (Kathy Gray): Okay, the poor, crippled, blind and lame.

0:12:46 – (Steve Gray): We have to go to the context and religious culture now in their culture first. In our culture, we’re okay with that. We don’t mind inviting blind people to our church or somebody lame or whatever they did. These people would have never been invited. If they were invited originally, like the known, the known wouldn’t have come anyway. Or if the known came, they would have left. They would not sit down with the lame or the cripple or that. Remember the parable where a lame man lays at the feet of the gate of this rich man and he doesn’t do anything, they didn’t help him because they believed that these people were lame or blind or crippled.

0:13:27 – (Steve Gray): Because this is just general belief in their culture. Because there was sin somewhere in their ancestry or they sinned. Remember they asked Jesus when a terrible tragedy happened, they said, did these people who sinned, did these people sin? And Jesus said, no, it has nothing to do with that. But that’s what they thought. So they wouldn’t have anything to do with him because they would kind of like.

0:13:49 – (Steve Gray): And these are kind of out and there, it’s their own fault or it’s somebody’s fault and they didn’t associate it. And if they had any sores, lame, crippled, sores, bleeding, leprosy, blind, anything, you didn’t want to touch them either, so they couldn’t sit by them. So the banquet is basically smashed now. And all the people that are coming are not just unknowns, but uninvited, who the culture would have pushed aside.

0:14:20 – (Steve Gray): But Jesus in this parable says, I’ll take them, I’ll take them. And so these are the kinds of things that Jesus. And the alternative is many of us, including me, is probably not a first choice person. I wouldn’t have chosen me. You know, the life I was leading. I wasn’t sick like that, but I spiritually was sick. I wouldn’t have chosen me. I would have chosen the bankers and the businessmen and the wealthy and the well to do. And, you know, they had great houses, great families, great kids. And here I was out, you know, crazy.

0:14:55 – (Steve Gray): But when we got to that point, we found out that they all became nominal, do nothing, care nothing, excuses of why they didn’t become the full-fledged go for God person. They found a comfortable spot to fit into the culture. And so we have cultural Christianity today that is causing us, well, not causing us, that is enabling us to stay nominal. Even if you want out. You don’t have the word of God piercing you like I’m trying to do today to cause you to break out and be the called ones. Because the ones who are in the pulpits and leadership today, not all, but the overall arc in Christianity today for millions of people, going to church on Sundays is nominal, comfortable, unchallenged.

0:15:47 – (Steve Gray): There’s no preaching of loyalty, sacrifice, living sacrifice, challenging die to self, pick up your cross. It’s almost unheard of today. So he gets angry and he goes and what happens then? Okay, so they. Apparently they come, okay.

0:16:05 – (Kathy Gray): And he said, go out and get them all, sir. The servant said, what you ordered has been done, but there is still room. Then the master told his servant, go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.

0:16:30 – (Steve Gray): Aha. You can believe that or not. So put it in context of the culture of that day, of compromised religion of their day, and we have compromised religion in our day. So you can tell, you can tell I’m living. I feel like I’m living a banquet life close to the Lord, Excited. I’m. I just had a birthday, you know, and I’m excited and going for God, living for him, Doing, doing, doing. And you can tell the other they’ve lost their invitation.

0:17:02 – (Steve Gray): They’re not even invited anymore. They’re just sitting in church going through the motions and satisfied. It’s okay to be in church going through the motions if you’re not satisfied with it. Right? Searching, seeking, finding. But it’s the satisfaction across the line, a satisfaction of preachers and teachers and worship leaders and people in the pews just were just satisfied with this nominal thing.

0:17:27 – (Steve Gray): And so what is the answer to this? It says the servants turn out to be the heroes.

0:17:32 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:17:33 – (Steve Gray): Not the banquet guy. He gives them instructions. It’s the servants are the heroes. And who do they become? First of all, they go out and get the unknown and the people that normally wouldn’t been invited. Maybe they’re not as respectable. Okay, that happens in their day. Our churches don’t mind the poor and the lame so much. But anyway. But they become the heroes because at the end of the story or the end of the parable, they go out and he says, well, there’s still room, so go out and do what?

0:18:03 – (Steve Gray): Not just have him not giving him live a compelling life.

0:18:08 – (Kathy Gray): Hallelujah.

0:18:09 – (Steve Gray): That’s not nominal. A compelling life. He said, compel them to come in. What? You know, I had one time I had. I don’t know if they said it about me or somebody else who says, you know, they’re shoving the gospel down my throat. And you know what my response was? I wish I could. Of course I’m joking. But you can’t go and boss people around. You can’t force them. You can’t even force your children. And if you do, it’s a mistake.

0:18:40 – (Steve Gray): How do you get your children in this? How do you get your relatives? How do you get people in, into this kingdom of God living and into the banquet life. You live a compelling life. You compel people by your own life, by your own living that they see something, they feel something. So what happened was they went ahead and invited people that came, probably because they’ve never been invited before, the poor, the lame, etc.

0:19:05 – (Steve Gray): But then there was still room. And so they became compelling people to compel people and they become the heroes. And that’s the story. That is the parable that the servants, that are true servants and love God become compelled to one last thing, to fill God’s house. And it doesn’t say to gather a few people on the beach to sing Kumbaya when it’s convenient or just to sing a few songs, raise your hand, sing it and go home and live for yourself and wait till another.

0:19:42 – (Steve Gray): No, God’s got a house. When Jesus went in, remember he turned the tables over of the money changers. And a lot of people like to preach that one. But he said, my house shall be a house of prayer. He called the church or the temple or the synagogue. He called it my house. So this, he says my house. So he’s not talking about us saying, well, church isn’t important anymore. We can just meet wherever there needs to be a sacred place, a set apart place called my house, not your house, my house.

0:20:19 – (Steve Gray): It’s a lesson in its own. But the real parable is, yes, it was insulting. I can preach on the insulting lives, how we insult and dishonor God. Okay, and a big banquet I could preach on. There’s a banquet going on, you know, and we’re invited to the banquet. You know, I can preach on all those things. But we get down to what the real lesson in the parable is. There was insult. Jesus is here and people don’t care.

0:20:47 – (Steve Gray): Except some did. Jesus is here. The Messiah is here. He’s here in spirit. He sent his Holy Spirit. There’s really no excuse for going forth in this. You can make excuses for yourself, but there is no excuse. So, and the real heroes, then some made excuses. And the real heroes are those that lived a compelling life that made and filled Jesus house. And what was that? Remove the insult. So the ones that didn’t, that made excuses and didn’t show up and insulted, who cares?

0:21:26 – (Steve Gray): They’ll never be invited. They’re done. They just might as well retire. Just retire as a believer. Just retire. Just go sit on a beach somewhere and be a retired Christian and just, just believe God’s real, Jesus is real and just live your life out. Okay, but there are those servants that said, nope, nope. We’re going to, we’re going to get your house filled and we’re going to do it by living a compelling life that causes people to want to come.

0:21:56 – (Steve Gray): I like it.

0:21:57 – (Kathy Gray): I like it.

0:21:57 – (Steve Gray): That’s Bible. It’s just Bible. That’s all I’m talking about is Bible. A parable from the, from the book of Luke that I hope is life changing. I hope you go to stevegrayministries.com and check out my books, like Mighty Like Gideon. There’s other books there too. Okay, that’s great. But my compelling message right now is go tell the people who are not getting the word of God, you know, whether they are or they aren’t where they go to church. And I’m not going to say anything about their church, but if they’re not getting the word of God, tell them about this podcast.

0:22:34 – (Steve Gray): It’s life changing, especially if you listen. And we’ll be doing another parable next week to help you get to where you’re living a compelling life of the servant of God that changes other people’s lives and fills the house with glory. Sound good? Till next time. Bye. Bye.