Taking It To the Streets

 

March 7, 2021                          NOTES NOT EDITED
Taking It To the Streets
Luke 14:15-35

SIS—If filling up God’s church with new believers who are loving and serving God is not your “top priority,” you are living in disobedience.

Today, we are going to look at the Greatest Invitation every given by the Greatest One Who Has Ever Lived to the Greatest Party that will ever be held. 

God has invited everyone in the world to attend a Great Banquet.  That Great Banquet is an eternal party that will take place for all eternity in heaven.  Our text reveals a shocking truth about this invitation:  many people simply did not respond.  This both breaks God’s heart and sparks His wrath.  Let’s read about this invitation: 

LUKE 14:15-24

Now, many sermons have been preached regarding the broadness of God’s invitation to salvation, and rightfully so.  In this parable God is represented as a man giving a great banquet.  That invitation represents an invitation to eternal life.  It is almost unfathomable to me that anyone could reject an absolutely free invitation to eternal life—but many, in fact most, have and will continue to reject that offer.

Today, I want to focus on the infinite passion for souls that characterizes God’s character, as evidenced by the fact that in verse 23 that God, represented by the master of the house, declares in what seems to be forceful language:

23 “And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. 

This text gives mankind insight into the very heart of God Almighty.  What really drives passion of God?  What so moves the heart of God that “He sent His only begotten Son” to die on a cross to provide the means by which all mankind could be offered an invitation to eternal life?  We are told what drives the heart of God to do such a thing:

“For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son.” 

The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Peter declared boldly:

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. 

From Genesis to Revelation the Bible unfolds the passion that God has for saving souls.  At the Cross—on the cross—the passion of God for reaching His lost children reached its zenith.   Nothing drives the heart of God more than His love for His lost children.  This is the message woven throughout this Parable of the Great Banquet. 

God’s passion is the salvation of men, women and children.  Knowing this, a church with more pew than people is an affront to God, Himself.  If filling up God’s church with new believers who are loving and serving God is not your “top priority,” you are living in disobedience.

Now, I realize that is a very, very strong statement and one that “stings” a little like salt on an open wound.  But, the truth is the truth and the sooner we as a church align ourselves with the truth of God’s Word in sacrificial obedience, then the sooner we will begin to see unimaginable blessings fall upon our church, our families, and our community—indeed, our world. 

Church is like a launching pad for believers sending us out into the highways and byways of life.  TAKING IT TO THE STREETS! is what church is all about.  This is what our text commands us to do and we simply must “get it done.”  God has given me 4 components from our text that are essential if we are going to see God’s blessing fall like rain from heaven with souls being saved regularly.

1.  There is a SPIRITUAL Component (v 15)

¹⁵ When one of those who reclined at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, “The one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God is blessed!” 

The background for the Parable of the Great Banquet is an actual meal at the at “the house of one of the leading Pharisees” (14:1).  They were reclining around a low table as was the custom of the day.  When the Pharisee spoke about a “person being blessed who eats bread in the Kingdom of God,”  this indicates the Pharisees assumed that Jesus was talking about them.

No people on earth at that time that were more “religious” and “righteous” than the Pharisees.  Now, everywhere in the N.T. Jesus interacts with the Pharisees, for the most part, it is not a pleasant interaction.  In fact, some of the harshest condemnations Jesus ever spoke, He spoke to and about the Pharisees.

But, and this is important, Jesus did recognize that the Pharisees highly valued righteousness and were fastidious about religious details.¹ They were strict “tithers,” radically evangelistic, and kept every jot and tittle of the Law—at least in their own minds.  In one text Jesus remarks:

^{Mat5:  20} For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

In the first century, if one turned to the Webster’s Dictionary under the heading, “righteous,” there would be a picture of a Pharisee.

Now, Jesus declared that one’s righteousness had to “exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees” in order to get into heaven.  I want to suggest strongly to you that there is “no way” you are going to compete with the Pharisees when it comes to “ritualistic righteousness.”  But, let me go back to our text in verse 14.

Jesus: ¹⁴“you will be repaid [for earthly service to the poor] at the resurrection of the righteous.  The self-righteous Pharisees obviously thought Jesus was speaking to them which is why one responded to Jesus in verse 15 with the boastfully pious remark, “The one who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God is blessed.” Jesus would then add the parable of the Great Banquet to show that “none of the self-righteous Pharisees” would be “eating bread in the Kingdom of God.” Jesus didn’t die on the cross to create a religion; He died to save souls!

You see, blessing, or being in the Kingdom of God is not something we “earn” or “gain” through our religious activities.  Entrance into the Kingdom of God is a “spiritual” matter, not a religious one.  True righteousness is “spiritual righteousness,” not “self-righteousness.”

“True righteousness” is imputed, or placed into us from the outside, not gained through ritual—however fastidiously we practice it.    It is a “spiritual transaction.”  The Bible says in 2Corinthians 5:21,

He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 

Therefore, “Taking It To The Streets,” has a spiritual component. It is a matter of complete and total surrender to God and obedience to His Holy Spirit on a day-by-day, moment-by-moment basis. 

The “spiritual component” involves prayer, Bible study (including a daily quiet time and Scripture memory), participation in the fellowship of God’s church as spiritual servants, and a Holy Spirit inspired compassion for lost people that motivates us to evangelize.

Without this spiritual component, God’s house will never be full of believers who love Him and are serving Him. 

2.  There is, then, also a HUMAN component (vv 17, 21, 23) 

Three times in this passage, the Master commands the servant to go.

1.  ¹⁷ and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’

2.  ²¹ “And the slave came back and reported this to his master  [that the original invitees had excuses for not attending]. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’

3.  ²³ “And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.

These texts demonstrate two important truths:  ❶ God is passionate—infinitely passionate—about seeing souls saved and serving in His church; and ❷ God has limited Himself to work through human instruments to accomplish His will.²  The Word of God has made it clear:  the winning of those whom God has elected to save is the responsibility of those that have been saved.  In a sentence: we must realize that the gospel came to us on its way to someone else. 

Nobody can be saved unless they hear the Word of God, and they can’t hear the Word of God without a preacher.  Rom. 10:14:

¹⁴ How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

Followers of Christ have an “absolute responsibility” to share the gospel.  Ezek 33:6: ‘But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman’s hand.’ 

“Accountable for THEIR blood.”  Chilling.  Terrifying.  For some of you this is paralyzing.  But, it is the Word of Almighty God.

You say, “But I can’t.”  God says, “But we must!”  We simply “must” do everything within our power to see that our church is filling up with new believers who are loving God and serving Him, or we are “just flat out living in disobedience.” 

We all need to get on our knees and stay on our knees until “filling up His church matters as much to us as it does to Our Lord!”

“Taking It To The Streets” has a spiritual component and a human component.  It also has

3.  a FINANCIAL component (vv 25-27)

²⁵Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, ²⁶“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple 

Then it is summarized in verse 33: ³³“So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. 

I don’t know how to say it any clearer: if anything else, including your possessions, is more important than “filling up the House of God with new believers that are loving Him and serving Him,” then you are not headed for heaven—you have rejected God’s Great Invitation just like the three “excuse-givers” in verses 18-20.

Verse 18:  The first rejection came by someone who “had to take care of his own field.”  Verse 19:  The second excuse came from a man who “had to take care of his own livestock.”  Verse 20:  the third one doesn’t really say why, but for some reason “he could not come to God’s banquet because of his family responsibilities.”

When it comes to life you can either choose to be someone who MAKES EXCUSES, or you can be someone who MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

Jesus had a lot to say about riches and to rich people and it was always a sobering discussion.  Here Jesus states the matter as plainly as it can be stated:  obedience to God involves one’s “finances.”

“Taking It To the Streets” has a financial component.  Ministry takes money.  It’s that simple.  It is true, “God owns the cattle on a thousand hills,” but it is also true that many of His followers are “cattle rustlers.”  Many Christians have God’s cattle locked up in their own barns! 

The wisest payment, or investment, you can make is to give regularly and generously to the Kingdom of God through your local Church.

There is a saying in the English vernacular that describes a person of great generosity.  We say, “He’d give you the shirt of his back.”  Well, a chiropractor in Tampa, Florida in 1994 did exactly that for his ex-wife.  He had been paying alimony for many years, but finally the last alimony payment came due.  It would be for $182, not a staggering amount in itself but it represented years of grudgingly paying his ex-wife.  He decided to not only make the payment, but make a statement as well.  He made an arrangement with his local bank. He purchased a brand new, pinstriped shirt.  On the back of the shirt he drew a large scale check, complete with account number and routing number.  In the memo line of the check for $182 he wrote this message:  Here it is—the shirt off my back!  His ex-wife took the shirt to the bank and cashed it.

We should never give to God’s work grudgingly, but I wonder, how many of us would be willing to give God, “the shirt off our back.” 

“Taking It To The Streets and Filling Up the Church” involves a spiritual component, a human component, and financial component.  Add these components together and they make a “compelling” argument that supports my SERMON IN A SENTENCE:  If filling up God’s church with new believers who are loving and serving God is not your “top priority,” you are living in disobedience.

Look back at verse 23. The word, “compel,” in the NASB comes from the Greek word, “anankazō (ἀναγκάζω). According to a major Greek dictionary it means, “to cause or compel someone in all the varying degrees from friendly pressure to forceful compulsion” (TDNT).  It is a compound word formed from “agkalē” which means “bent or twisted” and the prefix, an(a). The prefix, “an(a)” refers to repeated action or intensity.  Our common expression in English, “twisting someone’s arm,” is a colloquial equivalent of anankazō. Fulfilling God’s will to fill up His church with new believers is a serious mission that requires making others “uncomfortable” at times.  That also makes us “uncomfortable.”  But, sharing the gospel is essential!

There’s one more essential component to becoming“fully devoted followers of Christ” working to fill up the House of God with other fully devoted followers of Christ.  the most important component is:

4.  a MEDICAL component (Lk. 19:41-44)

Now, I don’t mean “medical” in the typical therapeutic sense as with hospitals, doctors, medicine and such treating a physical ailment.  I’m talking about a different type of “medical” component—a broken heart!

I don’t know who said it first, but the most profound prayer any believer could ever pray in regard to the Kingdom’s Work is this:  “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

Until our hearts are broken by what breaks God’s heart, churches like our will continue to float uselessly to the dock of apathy and never sail into God’s sunset of soul-winning.

I’m going to read one verse about how the lostness of mankind broke God’s heart, and then I’m going to play a video that should break our hearts. Luke 19:41 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it [because the people did not accept Him as the Messiah and Savior].

VIDEO: Do We Care That People Are Going To Hell? Then, why
aren’t we telling them about Jesus?

Let’s commit together to “fill up God’s house!”

NOTES

1. The Righteousness of the Pharisees

(1)  evangelistic:  You travel over land and sea to make one proselyte,  and when he becomes one, you make him twice as fit for hell  as you are! (Mat 23:15).

(2)  tithers:  You pay a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin (Lk. 23:23).  The Law of God required everyone to give a “tenth,” or a tithe, to the work of God.  Even if a wild herb, like mint, dill, or cumin sprouted up along the walkway of a Pharisees home, he would pick one out of ten and take it to the temple for an offering.

(3)  ritualistic: You clean the outside of the cup and dish. (Lk. 23:25). The Pharisees followed every ritualistic requirement of their faith—and there were many.  There was even a debate as to whether it was more important to clean the inside or the outside of a cup—and we are talking about “religious” practice, not a hygienic one.  The Pharisees were rigid in their pursuit of religion, and their practice far exceeded all others.

2. The Self-limitation of God

The Self-limitation is difficult for us to grasp because we comprehend that Yahweh is Absolutely Sovereign and can do anything He pleases—but that sovereignty includes NOT doing something, if it pleases Him.