Three Invitations

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0:00 Okay, so we get started this morning. There's three passages we're going to jump through. And Ben asked me Monday night to fill in for him and to cheer, yeah, no problem at all. And no idea what the current events of the week would hold or how the rest week would unfold. That all happened. And I was thinking through, so as part of like the church, like our cross network,

0:32 we have all the different passages that we're going to set each week laid out for the church here. And it's all out there. And of course, like it doesn't mean that you can't go away from that plan. And I thought about it and thought about it great about a lot last night going away from the passages that were essentially a sign. But I think it's actually kind of great because the passages you look at them there,

1:07 like what's cool about the words of the fly to the current events is applied to Ireland, the visual line. If you just ask for wisdom and you absolutely spirit to open up your eyes, we'll kind of see how things really. So this morning, as we get ready, there's three passages as you will. There's three invitations that we're going to look at. You know how the main question kind of ties into everything. There's three invitations we're going to look at. But I thought before we get started, it would be great to start with a little bit of a joke.

1:40 So I heard a story recently about this man who's driving behind this big truck that was carrying pigs. And one of the pigs fell off. Don't worry, the pig was okay. The truck kept driving with the rest of the pigs. So the man picked up the pig and put them in his car and started facing after the truck. And he was driving this passage he said to catch up to the truck. Well, then he got pulled over by the police officer and the police officer asked,

2:11 what are you doing? Like, why are you driving so fast? Where are you headed? So the man described a falling truck with pigs that pig fell off and I was trying to get it back to the truck. And the officer said, well, you're never going to catch the truck. It's too far gone. What you need to do with the pig is you need to take the visit. That's where you need to take the pig. So the man said, okay, fine, I'll take the picture of the zoo. And so then the next day the officer is out and he looks over and sees the man sitting on the side of the road with the pig. The man from the previous day to the pig. So the officer pulls up doing his test.

2:44 Sir, I thought I told you yesterday to take the pig to the zoo. This is a man looked over at the page and looked at the officer and he says, well, yeah, I did. I took him to the zoo yesterday and made a great time. So today we'll go to the east. That's pretty good. I didn't come up with that one. Okay, first, it's nothing to do with the message, by the way. It's nothing to do with anything. All right, let's get a proper chapter nine in all three verses one through nine.

3:18 This is the invitation number one. I'm not going to take them to any other stuff. I promise. A problem chapter nine versus one through nine. That says wisdom has built her house. And she is a tuner. And her seven colors. She has slaughtered her beast. She has mixed her wine with these also set her table. She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in town.

3:48 Whoever is simple, let them turn in here. To hand who lacks sense, he says, come eat with my bread and drink my wine. I'll mix leisure simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight. Whoever corrects us, scoffer gets himself abused and whoever approves a wicked man in purge injury. Do not reprove with scoffer or he will hate you. Who's a wise man as he will love you. Give his press into a wise man and he will still be wise.

4:18 He will speak to the wise man as he will preach the language. So the theme of this passage is they're taking wisdom and saying wisdom has sent out this invitation and it's open to anyone who is willing to come and ask for wisdom. And the first invitation, the three imitations we'll look at this morning is the invitation to ask for wisdom. Throughout the Bible, there are many passages that talk about that if you don't know what

4:51 to do, ask for wisdom. That applies today, I think, probably now more than ever. And what I liked about this passage and studying this was talking about scoffers. And if I'm going to be honest with you, there's been times in my life where I would probably consider myself a scoffer, somebody who had their mind made up about a particular island. And no matter what, it wasn't changing their mind, was it was dead set on what they thought,

5:25 what they believed, and would argue it almost to the point of causing division in relationships. And I've definitely caused that. Not only that, but for me a lot. And we kind of joke and say, I probably should have been in the turn because I love to debate. I don't know why, I just always love the idea of debating and it caused some tension in our mouth so I have to kind of curve that and I realize that. But after I met with one of my first jobs when I lived here working at Publix as a stop person

5:58 and getting into debates about just various things, religious things, political things, and it was so, so dug in. And I was talking to Nani and yesterday, and I was saying to you, I realized, the older I get, how much I really don't know. And I'm actually more comfortable with that. And I would say that what does wisdom look like? And I think wisdom looks a lot like curiosity.

6:32 We try to talk to the kids around the house and there's a plethora of really polarizing hot button topics that we can talk through that even happen to sleep, right? But there's a plethora of these things that we can talk about with the kids. There's a lot of issues that, you know, I work at Disney. So we've been in the news for taking sides on particular issues. And the more that I grow as a person, I hope I'm becoming wiser.

7:05 But I'm trying to realize that it's better for me to be curious and to not realize that everything is black and white. There's a lot of gray. And the world, there's a lot of color in the world too. It's not just black and white. And if I were to go back and talk to the browning from five years ago, even, he would look a lot different than the browning now. And I think this passes this for minding of that is that wisdom is first off, it's accessible to everyone.

7:39 And if you were, if you're leaning hard on a particular stance on something, what I just asked you to do and be aware of, is if you just be curious, be curious about why you take that stance, be curious about why you believe what you believe. And I think to me, that's what wisdom looks like is, is being more comfortable saying, this is what I believe, but keeping an open mind and open here, here's two different things.

8:10 I mentioned before, and we'll hear this a lot during the message, a lot of polarizing topics out there, right? A lot of polarizing topics. And I can remember a few weeks ago, after the mass shooting in Texas, we had a text right from friends, and we were texting, like, talking about the current events of that day. And like, what do you do in this situation? And there's a lot of things to do, but what I try to do is not close off my mind and conversation to people who have different opinions than I did.

8:55 And I do that for a couple of reasons. Number one, I don't think it's ever good to only sit in a tent or sit in a household where you talk to people who do nothing but agree with you. I don't think that's healthy at all. I don't think that's great. I definitely think you should have a tribe, you should have people who are speaking into their lives, or people who are life-minded with you. But I think it's also an invitation for us this morning to recognize that there's other people in this room who are split on some of these topics that are off of it right now. And that's okay.

9:30 And I don't think we should shy away from that. I think we should lean into that. We should lean into asking other people what they think and really listening to that. The person who is my best man when I got married, he's become one of those people in my life. We both like to debate. And when we work together, we definitely had a lot of the same agreements about different topics. And over the last couple years, it's become very, very apparent.

10:01 We do not agree on a lot of these big issues. We have very different mindsets. And he and I will get together occasionally, we'll have dinner. And we'll just debate these different things. We'll talk about various things. And we'll get into these really strong debates about things and discussing our differences. And what I appreciate about that relationship is it keeps me on my toes. It keeps me like thinking through, okay, why do I believe what I believe?

10:36 And I try to use it as a reminder to be serious. The Bible talks about this past this year because like be careful. Like when you try to show other people and you try to talk to other people, you're basically asking for what the Bible says of use is you're going to incur injury if you're not careful with some of the people. Let me be really clear and say this. This was not a good career, it needed to go out this afternoon and take up all of your thoughts and stuff on Twitter and get into like Twitter arguments with people.

11:08 Because I think that's what the Bible is talking about. It talks about your internal injury. When you go out looking for debates, when you go out looking to polarize people or you go out to convince other people, sometimes you wind up hardening their own position. And so the Bible is talking about wisdom here and I think there's an invitation for all of us to ask for wisdom. And B, there's also this invitation to double check ourselves to make sure we're not so dug into every position that we've got.

11:40 And I'm not saying you shouldn't have a belief and I'm not saying you shouldn't have a theme for something, but I think you should. But I think it's really important to understand that not everybody shares that and it's good to have healthy conversations with folks. I think it's good to ask for the people that are things that think it's good to double check yourself into ask for wisdom. So this morning, that's the first invitation is that we have this ability to ask for wisdom. What I also like about this passage is that the invitation is out there.

12:10 You don't talk about wisdom being a woman and wisdom is, which is probably pretty accurate, but wisdom is set for table and the invitation type is set. And it's up to us to respond to that invitation, meaning that it's out there, it's accessible to all of us. Ask for wisdom. Ask God for wisdom about things. And then he'll step through and I part of that journey for me has been having those harder conversations

12:40 with people who don't agree with me or I don't agree with. To me wisdom looks a lot like curiosity and asking more questions. Being okay with not knowing every single answer that's out there. We try to teach our kids that. We try to teach our kids that. There's a whole lot that we don't understand and it's okay to be unsure about things. And so my encouragement to you this morning and reading this passage and I think part of the reason

13:12 why this is on today's schedule is that invitation to say, here it is, ask for wisdom. Don't surround yourself only with people saying the same thing that you're saying. Second invitation is found in Luke chapter 15 verse 15 through 24. So I'll give you guys a second to flip over there. I pushed the button to get there. So Luke 14. So Luke chapter 14 verse 15 through 24 says this is says,

13:54 when one of these is repined at the table with him heard these things he said to him, but also this other one who would eat bread and the kingdom of God. But he said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited men. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come for everything he's now ready. But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, I've got a few and I must go out and see it. Please have me excuse. Another said I had bought five jokes of often and I need to go examine them.

14:29 Please have me excuse. And another said I'd marry the wife and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and recorded his thanks to the master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to the surgeon, go out to the street and lean to the city and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and the wind. And the servant said, sir, what you've communicated has already been done and still there is real. And the master said to the servant, go out to the high bay and hedges and compel people to come in.

15:01 That my house may be filled. So I tell you none of these men were invited to all peace of my banquet. I love this. I love this parable. I love this story. Ben actually, do you guys remember last year where Ben might walk through the different parables in the Book of Luke? This is one of the seats he spoke on. He spoke on this on Halloween. So October 31. So when I got the invite to the seat today, I was like, oh, you walked up the same book.

15:33 I'll just read the same thing. Nobody remembers from October 31. So it happened. It's all good, right? No one will know. This is easy. I can even try to go find the audio and just maybe even play that. It's like Ben's here, but it's me. You know, I can't do that. I can't replicate exactly what Ben said. The other things I think that's interesting about this story, but one, it takes them to go out and advance before the actual banquet itself. Right?

16:03 That's normal. And then it takes them to go out and go away. You have a chance to actually respond. The fact that the master asked the server to go out to the houses and say, okay, now this thing's ready to go, right? You have to think this is back in biblical times. So it wasn't like, um, this took hours and hours and hours to process everything you're looking for. So they had to cook all the meat, which to put them easier to get to the point you could put the meat, which you can fill in the gas there. About that process. You get to get everything ready.

16:33 You got to set the table, send it to the house, get everything ready, ready. It's a big deal. You got to know how many people are actually coming, right? RCP's matter. And that is about them. You got to know how much things actually happen to everybody. So you're relying on what other people have said. And you're expecting everybody who came in as a guest is going to fill up, right? And so when everything's ready to go, the servant goes out and he's calling all the different people and saying, okay, we can't be ready to go. Come back to the house. And one by one is different excuses.

17:04 The first guy talks about, you know, I just bought land and I got to inspect it. Well, if you remember, Ben talks about this on Halloween last year, but if you don't remember, it's okay. Don't sing and you purchase land. It's a big deal. It's a big deal today. There was a very big deal in the fact that it took several months to actually put the training back in a half. So there's plenty of opportunity for you to expect the land to go on. Number two, when they were actually riding up the paperwork toward the land because of the such an important event,

17:37 they had to document like almost survey all of the land and document the types of trees that were on the land and how many of them there were. They obviously the entire style of the land, the type of soil that is there, the terrain, stuff like that. So like, there's a lot of detail that's given to you before you sign in any paper. And yet the person's response to the banquet was, oh, I'm buying land. I've got a lot of them expected. Or I just thought, I'm not going to go and expect it. So it seems kind of like, hmm, doesn't really add it.

18:07 Second person was talking about their buying often, right? Which I guess today would be a token of maybe chapters or cards and saying, I've got to go and expect them. Well, banquet's likely happening at nighttime. Biblical time. There's obviously no floodlights. You can't do a whole lot in the dark. I tried this week. It was working on the project on the side of our yard. And it was Monday night and I asked Melanie for it on the outside lights.

18:39 And Sissy did. And for some reason they weren't working. So I just kept trying to work in the dark and how to have land and stuff like that. But you can't do things in the actual car. It's hard. It's hard to do those things. And so when you actually go to the market back then and bought off, they would usually have part of the market. They would have a field nearby or a place nearby where you could go see the livestock, especially off, to see how they work together. You could go actually, essentially, try this one by and see how they all work together.

19:10 Because not all the offspring are put together. All of them will work well together. Right? So that's a whole process in another stuff. So this second excuse or the second person who's in the body gives this excuse and it's just crazy. And then the third one is I just got married. And there is a Jewish law that talks about like in your first year of marriage, you're not supposed to go off the war. Right? And so that's the possibility is that the person may be leaning on that wall a little too generously in this case.

19:44 Maybe, but it just kind of seems like a weird response to get. It wasn't like the master would have planned his banquet on the same day that there would have been a wedding. So it's not the wedding day. So this person's given the excuse. Well, I just got married. You're on can't come. So there's like three excuses that are given back to the master in this story. When there's just some open table, there's an open invitation to these folks. They've already responded to the invitation and said, yeah, I'll be there. But then they come back and say, I can't come.

20:16 So the master's response, of course, is don't do the sitting here and invite a little buddy out. And then the servant comes back and says, yeah, already did that. And so the master says, OK, go outside of the city and invite everybody else. Those two invitations are pretty significant at the time. Right? So Judaism's a big deal in the land. Right? When Jesus is there in this story, the idea of going out to outsiders is pretty radical in and of itself.

20:49 Right? Viewer tradition is that if you were born to Jew or you convert to Judaism, it's a very, very big deal. Like it's not a go out there. It's not out there for every single person. Of course, people can tell them that it's not an easy thing to just tell them to say, I'm going to be Jewish now. It's a very big process to convert to Judaism. So the fact that Jesus is saying this stuff is a pretty radical idea, a pretty radical thought. That he's saying, I'm going to go outside of even the people who are initially invited.

21:20 And this invitation is for everybody. And so you read commentaries about this story and they're talking about salvation here. And what this invitation is, it's an invitation the way I read it. It's an invitation for everyone to die at the master's table. Which is pretty great if you think about it because Jesus was inclusive. He included every single person that was out there, whether they were wealthy enough to buy Austin or land or fortune enough to get married.

22:01 He included every single person both in the town and outside the town. The invitation you can die at the master's table is open and it's available to every single person. And as I think through that, coming off of this week, coming off the last few months and years, I think it's a beautiful reminder that there is an invitation for all of us, for everybody, to die or to sit. Or to sit at the master's table.

22:32 There's also what's cool about this is the only people not at the master's table are the people who were using invitation. There's no one's like invitation getting lost in the mail here. Everyone who's invited can come. But the only people who aren't there are the people who chose not to be there. Same thing 2022, June 26 applies to us today.

23:04 We're all invited to this. We're all invited to dying with the master's. One commentary I read talked about how big of a deal it was when they talked about there was a table involved. Because back then, you were a crazy big deal if you had a table. And especially you were eating at a table and you were a big deal with kind of like a flex. Not only the sort of flex but definitely a sad type thing. The fact that you have a table to eat at is a very, very big deal.

23:36 But then on top of that, this master has a big enough people for people to come sit at more than just to sing. So there's this almost like you get invited to a celebrity house. This is like I can imagine a table where invited to go to dinner with Harry Styles. That's probably like the none of all that these people would have. It's like oh my goodness, you can get it to a big deal to be invited to this thing.

24:11 It's a big deal that we've all been invited to this table. And this morning, I think it's a reminder that A, we've been invited and B is also the double-tech yourself with your RSVP to the master's table. And the midst of everything that's going on, right, for a permutation is an imitation to live from the second imitation. The imitation can draw a mirror to the master.

24:41 Nothing's changed regarding that imitation. The status of that imitation is still out there. There is nothing that is in your past on the kind of body of government or any kind of country that can ever take away that indication. And so as long as you and I have a heartbeat, the invitation that's out there, and I think it's an invitation on how regular basis that we can continually accept what is our RSVP to that, right? It's not just about one time since.

25:11 Yep, I became a Christian. You enjoy what 1999 meant, I became a believer. Yeah, except for the invitation. It's an invitation every day to go back and die with the master's. An invitation every day to steal at the table. So an invitation every day to go sit at the table with other people that you may not fully understand, may not fully agree with and alignment because guess what? They also got invited to the same invitation. They got the same invite.

25:41 A few months ago, during Passover season, we got invited to a stator and it was really cool. I'm really glad we went. And I think I knew me personally, introvert, I knew approximately like five people, maybe six people outside of Melanie. And that's in this like 30 something people there as an introvert, that's intended, right?

26:11 And I can remember like going there and I was thinking about it this morning as well as like reflecting on getting ready for the message. How I was a little intimidated to show up at this place that I've never been before. I don't know majority of people there. All different kinds of walks of life, business owners, people that work for large corporations, small businesses, kind of intimidating, right? And we supposed to sit down and take part of this whole thing.

26:42 And trying to like just figure out what I fit and all of this. And as I think of through the night, there was a lot of anxiety. There was a lot of worry going up to it. I think I'd be walking up to the house, like as an introvert, I'm usually like pushing Melanie in first, like, you know, but oh no, you go for a gentleman, hold the door. You go, I don't like to go in at all. And then there's times like still take off and go get something. And I'm like left alone with a crowd of room full of people that I think everybody's staring at me.

27:15 They're really not, but they're staring at me. But it's really intimidating, right? To go in a room came in from a little stator. And throughout the night, we walked through the whole process with remembrance of what it was and what it was about. And then there was actual like we had actual food. And then it just, everything just, it's like head up point of the stator, where it just took place. This is current. Like, I don't know half of these people, but we're having conversations and we're talking about things and how great of banquet it turned out to be.

27:48 And that's what I think sometimes when I get this, when I revolve the invitations to think what is, Hey, you may be like me going up to that stator. You may be like, I don't know if I'm gonna go. There's gonna be people there that I don't fully know. There's gonna be people there that I don't necessarily agree with. There's gonna be people that I just don't fully understand. And it could be really intimidating. And so I think that second invitation, the invitation to dine with the master is that it's a continual invitation,

28:18 not only will you become a believer, but it's also an invitation to remember you're sitting with the master, right? As a believer, that's the best thing that you have to do for a class. It's the same time with the master. And I think in the light of everything that's going on, I think it's amazing that this is a passage that came off as this was scheduled long ago to be this week that we're looking at the classes in this invitation. And then quickly, let's look at the third one. So the third one is in a season's chapter two.

28:50 So this is the third invitation. The season's chapter two starting in verse 13 says this, but now in Christ, Jesus, who were once far off and have been brought here by the blood of both. For he or he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the wall of commandments, expressing ordinances that he might create himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

29:22 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And as he came into each piece to you, who were far off in peace of those who were near, for though or for through him, we both have access to in one sphere to the father. So then you are no longer strangers in the audience, but you are fellow citizens with distinct and amends of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

29:54 Christ Jesus himself being the quarters found in whom the whole structure being joined together grows in a holy temple and the Lord. In him you also are being built together in a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. There is a lot of words. Let me just kind of break it down for you really quick. So Paul, Jewish, background, and he is writing through church in Ephesus. The church in Ephesus was made up of predominantly Gentiles or non-Jewish people who became believers.

30:28 In Judaism, you are the chosen people of God. You are the special people. The Jews believe them. They are chosen by God. Everybody else is considered a Gentile. It's kind of like an automatic dividing. So there was a lot of tension in the early church where you had Jewish people, Jewish background becoming believers, and then people who were Gentiles were becoming believers.

30:58 There were times in the early church that there was even still a separation. In the Old Testament, it wasn't that Judaism was only to Jewish people. God was only available to the people. It wasn't that at all. Gentiles were allowed in the temple. But they were put off to the side, kind of the back of the temple. They weren't really allowed to be part of the actual, with Jewish people who took the tip with them by any means. So in the early church, some of that separation kind of came in.

31:32 And Paul's addressing this directly. He talks about the circumcised on the unsurfers. The circumcised portion of Jewish people on the side, the Gentile people. And what Paul was saying is, you are missing the point. You're getting stuck and you're focusing in on this particular status of something, a name of something that people would be something. And he's trying to say that Jesus came and he abauled all of that stuff. Like in the ESD, it talks about how he had Christ himself had broken down in his flesh, the dividing wall of Hofstra.

32:11 Right? There are people who have different backgrounds than you. People who have different beliefs than you. People have different understandings. They give out how the world works and how they got to Christ is different than how you got to Christ. There's differences of belief. That's saying to that, there's people who have a difference of opinion than you, about certain things. And what's amazing is, is like there's a reminder that this morning that the end of cases is the end of cases of these are church.

32:45 By no means is the church is going to get along and every single person has the exact same belief about every single small topic or even bigger topic. There's going to be people who have different views. Right? One of the passages I was thinking about speaking on this morning because everything that happened was frozen probably the least I thought. Okay, this is great. We'll do Luke chapter 13. We'll talk about when Pilate, when you kill the people who were actually trying to make sacrifices in the temple, if he mixed their blood with the sacrifice, which is a big no no.

33:18 Jesus addresses that. We'll talk about that passage. That'll be great. That'll be great. We can talk about this because in reality, when Jesus was put to the puffer to talk about political issues, Jesus' response was like, hey, I'm doing something bigger. This is bigger than all of that. Jesus' response to people when they came to him and they said, hey, what about what happened in Pilate did this? His response was simply this, hey, you should go repent.

33:49 He doesn't answer about a silence of the right thing or the wrong thing. Jesus says he needs to repent. And I'm saying that this morning because this is a, to me, the seasons, this is an invitation. This is a reminder that the kingdom of God is bigger than the things that sometimes we busy ourselves with. The kingdom of God, Jesus, what he did was he broke down the divisions. He broke down the division between Jewish person and Gentile person. They're both on equal play.

34:27 There's people who have a difference of opinion in you. I have strong beliefs about things. And I know that people have a difference of opinion. And the reality is what Jesus came to do and what he talks about in the seasons here is talking about building a temple out of these people, building the church. The purpose of the church as a temple is to reveal the presence and the glory of God on earth. Right? That's the purpose of the church.

34:59 And so it's an invitation this morning to be the church. It's an invitation to be remembered to remember life. As an individual, as a believer, there's going to be scenes that you would dream with that happen and there's going to be scenes that you don't agree with that happen. And I think the invitation is, is don't say stuff. Go to the next level and remember there's a bigger thing going on here. The kingdom of God is bigger than the current events of the day.

35:33 And as believers, that's what was to be focused on. That's what we should be working towards and remembering is that we're here to reflect the presence of God through the world. That there's an invitation to go be with the master on a regular basis, on a daily basis, on a daily basis. There's that invitation. And if there's an invitation in your structure, you don't know what to do in your own show about something. There's an invitation to ask for wisdom. Those are three invitations that's available to every single person in the stream. Everything goes on its outside of the stream this morning.

36:09 Regardless of what your affiliation is, regardless of what your beliefs is, regardless of where you work, that is something like that. Those are the cases are available to every single person. And like I said in the second one, the only people not at the master table are the people who didn't respond to the invitation or who rejected the invitation. That's it. It's open to all of us.

36:41 Let's pray this morning as my comes up to lead us to worship. Thank you for this message. This is tricky. This is tricky you talked about. Help me remember these imitations that are out there to ask for wisdom and to come to your table and to be the church.

37:20 How many remember those imitations? Help me to respond to those imitations on a regular basis? I pray that I pray that by me responses and accepting those imitations, I pray that your glory goes to editing. I have a glass as a group. And I pray that the people who were outside of these walls, the people who are outside of this church, come to call closer to you, come to know you because I have accepted those imitations and it's evident in my life.

38:10 God thank you again for giving us the safe place that you can come and hear about your word and it's your name, the friend. Amen.