OCT 8 2017 | Matthew 22:1-14

Sea Change Church · "Matthew 22:1-14" · Adam Stadtmiller · October 8, 2017
Matthew 22:1-14
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Matthew 22, 1 through 14, Jesus spoke to them again in parables 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. Then he sent some more servants and 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. But they paid no attention and went off one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 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 find. So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, how did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?

The man was speechless. 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. The word of the Lord. Thank you, Elliot. Good morning, everyone. Wow. There's a lot of you here today. And both sides are full. So I don't know which side wins today.

Well done. And I don't know if anybody noticed, but I got new hair. Anybody know? Yeah, okay. There you go. Somebody over there saw that right on. Now, I just got to say, not that everyone needs a hair report before we begin the sermon. But this is six steps and three pieces, three types of product. So I don't know how long I'm going for this. But I'm working it out.

You know what I'm saying? So with that said, we're going to move in to the scripture. You can keep a track on it. I was recently at a pastor's conference for the American Baptist. Whether you know we're American Baptist or not, I think I found out not long ago. But we have been a Baptist church for about 100 years or so. And the thing about the Baptist is one of their things is they allow you to be completely autonomous.

So there's no, we try to control you from the top. Every church has the ability to be, has autonomy, which is really interesting and makes for some interesting discussions as you try to stay unified. We probably seem more like a non-denominational church here, but we are committed to evangelism, letting people be baptized and be discipled in the core tenets of the Apostles' Creed.

But when I was there, Lee Spitzer is the new general secretary. That's kind of like the president. There's no president of the American Baptist because they're not into control-based ministry. But they do have a general secretary, and it's Lee Spitzer. Lee Spitzer is a New York Jew who was, he's probably about 60, 65 years old, conservative, and came to Jesus through a vision after he had read Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

He felt that those, and this guy's right up my alley, you know what I mean? I've got like, you know, I've got a Lord of the Rings sword in my office. I've got the poster, the whole things. I have Hobbit feet if you've ever seen them on Facebook when I go on vacation. You'll see my Hobbit feet. No, you won't. That'd be really funny if you get those fake Hobbit feet.

Put every time you go on vacation, put your Hobbit feet when you're in Fiji. And so, right. So he was speaking and had this incredible experience of Jesus came to him, and he began at 14 years old to make a decision that Jesus was really read through the entire Bible six times in middle school. This guy is intense. He is awesome. He's very funny.

And he spoke about in the 1970s when he went to the Philippines after Vietnam. And he was going through the Philippines on a missions trip up to visit some people groups that had not yet been reached with the gospel and was going through the jungles and up the rivers and such. And he said he was sitting there and he was thinking to himself, this could have been 500 years ago.

This is like what it would have looked like in prehistoric times. And we are taking the gospel. He's having this evangelistic missionary moment of glory, right? You know, he's Hudson Taylor. You know, he is going places where, like Captain Kirk, no man has gone before. And he is having this moment of evangelistic fervor. And in the midst of that, he comes around a corner to be confronted with a giant sign that says, drink Coke.

And not only could you drink Coke, there was a little man that sat at the bottom of the sign and would take your recycled bottles and give you change back. And he had a thought at the moment that he was on a trip to go reach people that had never heard the gospel before or had not been reached before or at least he thought had not been reached before.

And he realized that American capitalism and Coca-Cola had once again beat the church to the punch. And it was a really intriguing talk as he opened up about the need for evangelism. The need for a church that is desperate to invite people to know the Savior. And it was so challenging to myself. It was challenging to me to think about as a church, how are we telling, how are we Christ telling?

Now, the word evangelism has a lot of, I would say, baggage to it. It's a good word. I don't want to throw the word out. But I think we all have our understanding of what that means for us. If you ask each person, every one of you is going to have a different idea of what that means. Somebody came to your house and knocked on the door. Or somebody was on a street corner when you went on a trip and they were yelling and they had a sign you're going to hell.

Or somebody was very cool and talked to you for weeks and months. And they were an amazing believer. And you began to follow Christ because of that. And some of you, we know, in this church have had dreams and became to Christ through dreams. We know that that has happened before, that Christ has showed up. And so God is going to get his purposes done.

But for some reason, he chooses to use us as believers to share the message. Now, one of the most provocative things that General Secretary Spitzer said, and I'm considering having him, I'm going to speak to the elders about him coming and speaking to our church because I thought it was so good what he spoke about. And he's overseas, 1.2 million American Baptists in the country under which we are a part, different segments of that community.

And as he spoke about evangelism, he said, this is not a political statement. He says, so please, if we can just take the politics out of what I want to say and look at it from a purely theological, God-based understanding. Now, I know that's really difficult today. We can't even think about sports without having a political divide. We can't think about French cuisine.

Maybe we can think about French cuisine. I don't think there's anything around French cuisine. No one's protesting French cuisine at the moment. But as you know, everything seems to have that twinge. He says, I want to talk about immigration. And I said, okay. Well, actually, I didn't say okay. I'm just sitting there. I'm listening. I'm like, how is he going to do this?

He says, the call of the gospel is to go out and to reach people with the gospel. But what I have learned through my trip to the Philippines in the 1970s is that, for the most part, besides missionary groups and parachurch ministries, we have done a very poor job at it. Very poor job. This is him speaking, and you might have a different understanding of this.

He says, I wonder if God has a new strategy. I wonder if he flipped the switch. And it is not a political thing, but he said, if you're not going to go to them, then I'll bring them to you. Now, it was such a provocative statement. And if you can distance yourself from any political idea, any thoughts about walls and buildings and all, if you can just look at it from a purely theological perspective, thinking we have a God who wants his message to go to every human heart.

And he will do whatever it takes. Matter of fact, you know what's so crazy? He'll even send his son to die on a cross that it would happen. Let's not think it's so crazy that he might change his game plan on a while. And so the question was, whether you're for or against, you have people surrounding you now that have never heard the gospel, many of which are religious people, and how are you going to reach them?

I thought it was a provocative thought. And one I just wanted to present to you. I'm not sure I have an answer. I'm not sure I even agree with him. But I think one of the things we want to do as a church is have provocative thought that causes us to wonder, how am I Christ-telling? That's a term that I can't, I mean, somebody else probably used it, but I was trying to think of another way to talk about Jesus.

And there's two words, one phrase and one word that I really like. First is the word invitation. I think Christianity is more of an invitation than a job at convincing. Make sense? We got very good, especially in the 1980s, and I don't want to bash what we did in the 80s because we're here because of that. We got invited, my brother got invited to Disneyland by Chris Conrad.

And the reason I'm the pastor of your church is because a sixth grader invited my brother to Disneyland and we got on the mailing roll. I mean, basically, that's why I'm here. That goes very, you know, if you want to go to the root. It was an invitation. Chris Conrad, in the middle of a game of dodgeball, did not go up to my brother and say, have you heard of the four spiritual laws?

Nothing wrong with the four spiritual laws. If you use them, yay for you. He didn't do that. He didn't want to talk about Aquinas. He didn't want to talk about anything to do with the church. He just said, do you want to go to Disneyland? Now, Disneyland, I didn't know, was a strategic tool to allow people to go somewhere that was comfortable and fun so they could begin a conversation with Jesus themselves.

I think one of the things we oftentimes don't do when we're talking about Christ-telling is we don't allow people to have the conversation with Jesus themselves. Invite people to have a conversation with Jesus as opposed to you having to be the answer for every single question. Recently, I was talking to somebody about Jesus and about church, and immediately they wanted to pivot the conversation to political beliefs.

I said, you know, there's a lot we can talk about that, but let me just, I think the first thing to do is, what if I got you a Bible and you began to read the book, the Gospel of John? And then let's have that conversation based on the Scripture. But trying to invite people to have a relationship with Jesus. You know what I have found out is there's a fair amount of people, and Jesus found this out as well, who don't want to have a conversation about Jesus.

They want to have a conversation about everything but Jesus. One of the things I'm trying to do is find people that want to have a conversation. We'll talk about that in a moment, that I believe we are in the most rich time, probably since the 60s, probably even more so since then. I'm watching the PBS documentary on Vietnam. I thought we had it bad.

Goodness gracious. I was born in 69, so I missed that, by the way. But any of you that were there, you know what, there's a lot of stuff going on in the 60s. Did you know that? A little bit of sarcasm there. Yeah, there's a lot going on. But I'm finding that it is a rich time to have conversation with people. People are ready to talk. Now here we have this scripture, and it's a parable.

And as you'll see in your notes, one of the things about Christ telling and about invitation, and those are the two words that I'm talking about, telling people about Christ, about who Jesus is. I mean, that's a great thing to do. As opposed to try to convince them why they should follow him, just tell them about Jesus and what he means to you, and then give them the invitation to come in a relationship with him.

That's what happens over and over again. Before I go to that first point, I think I want to set this before you, is who are you Christ telling? Who are you talking about Jesus to? I was convicted on my trip. We drove our motor home up to the pastor's conference in Idaho. That's a long drive. I don't recommend it. It's 3,200 miles there and back. That's a lot.

It's a beautiful country. Unbelievable. Before I got to the pastor's conference, it took us like five or six days to get there. My mom called me. She'd led three people to Christ in six days. Right? The homeless guy that you met, my aunt, and one other person. And I'm like, now, I didn't know that Spitzer was going to talk about evangelism. So I don't know if you got a little extra, you know, spiritual whatever that day or whatever.

But she keeps calling me. Eight in the morning. Adam, I got to talk to you. And I'm like, I haven't had my coffee yet. I'm like, okay, all right. What do we got here? What do we got? I got to tell you who I met. I was going by and the Lord spoke to my heart and said, go back and see this homeless guy. And I prayed with him and he accepted Christ. And then I went, and the next day, again, I was with your aunt.

We were coming back from the funeral. We're in the backseat of the car. And in the 20-minute ride to the airport, I asked her if she wanted to accept Jesus. She goes, I never knew that about the cross. And she accepted Jesus in the back of the car. I mean, awesome. I mean, you know, awesome. Like, I'm the pastor. And I just, all I did was feel guilty for another 1,000 miles.

Like, it was. You know, 85 this year, right? 86. You're doing good. You're doing good, my lady. Mom's doing good at 86. Yeah, right? She said, my first question when I start with evangelizing, I'm just, this is free. This wasn't in the notes. First question when I tell people about Jesus is this. How are you doing today? Whoa, whoa. Great. I mean, who thought about that?

That's a great one. Where'd you come up with that? I mean, that's really solid, right? Just how are you doing today, you know? This idea. Now, as we get into this parable, we're looking at this parable. It's a pretty hardcore parable. There's a lot going on. And this is what I wrote in the notes. Let's remember that with a parable is meant to show contrast and to teach, but perhaps not call us towards absolutes, okay?

I believe that there are some absolutes in the Bible. There's many absolutes in the Bible. But it's easy to look at these parables that Jesus speaks about and to immediately try to draw an absolute. So I want us to be wise and careful, but also open to the fact that that might be an absolute. And so open to that. And so to deal very wisely and precisely with the scripture.

Here's verse two. Let's just jump right into this. And this is all about evangelism. First of all, the scene in verse two is set around the wedding feast for a king's son. Now, we know who that's speaking about. It's about Jesus. It's about God's great celebration for eternity of his son. And it's Jesus taking a bow to the Father and the Father taking a bow to Jesus back and forth where Jesus is saying, I died on the cross that you might be known to the praise and glory of God above.

You know, Jesus did not die on the cross to save us from our sins. Jesus died on the cross. Theologically, you can look this up and challenge me on it. He died on the cross to glorify his Father. Now, he did that. And granted, he, for God so loved the world that he sent his only son. But the reason Jesus died on the cross was to bring glory to his Father.

And the whole purpose in dying on the cross was so that he could introduce you to your Father again. Because we bastardized ourselves in Genesis chapter 3. Where we left God and we said we no longer, we want to be God. We no longer want a Father. And so Jesus wants to introduce them to the Father. And so at the heart of all Christ telling, let me say, you are eventually leading people to know their Father.

Through the cross, through Jesus, but to know their Father. It's a mission of adoption. That is the mission of the gospel. That Jesus did not leave us to be orphans, the scripture says. It is perhaps the most powerful verse in scripture. And so we see this scene that there is this feast that is going to be had. It is this amazing party. And what the scripture is telling us in this parable is that something awesome is going to happen for eternity.

I don't know what it is, what it's going to be. But you're not going to be bored and all the different lies that there's no time. You can't get bored when there's no time, okay? It's a timeless space. Boredom happens because time passes and you don't know what to do with yourself. There is no time. You're living in the glory and the love of God.

I can't explain exactly what it is, but it's pretty awesome. And here it says it's a King's feast. Let's go to verse 3. The Father wants to have everyone come. He's so excited about His Son. He wants everybody to come. So He sends out people, not only people, He sends out servants to do the work of inviting. Do you see that? The whole work of invitation.

And while He does come in dreams and everything's not an absolute and God can do it, for some reason, He decided that He wanted to partner with His creation in bringing the children of God back to Him through invitation. And so let me read verse 2 because this should mean you. The kingdom of heaven is like, is like, like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.

And in verse 3, He sent His servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come. And so it's very clear. Who are you? Every day when you go out, do you go out as a sent servant with, you know, the desire to tell somebody about Jesus? The desire to invite? I gotta say, I gotta tell you what, I don't do that. I just gotta be straight with you.

I don't get up in the first thing of the day and think about, I'm gonna go out as a sent child of God today. Matter of fact, I rarely do that. And sometimes evangelistic conversations sneak up on me and I realize that I'm in them and then all of a sudden I remind myself, hey, this might be a good opportunity to say something. Sometimes I've even been hesitant to say something because I'm afraid that they might refuse.

I have to say, the scripture's clear that many will. The scripture's also clear that many will not. That if you speak to people about Jesus, many will come. There are those that will come. And we tend to believe that no one wants to hear the gospel anymore. And so when you go out in the day, this isn't to make you feel guilty or whatever, but you go as a sent, you know, sent with the invitation of God to lead people to the Father.

It's a great commission. Evangelism then is the art of invitation. How do you invite? You know, how do you invite people? You can invite them onto your, you know, basketball team. You can invite them out to dinner. There's a lot of places you can invite to, but it doesn't always have to look like the way we've been told it looked. It's an art form that is created by you.

And so who are you telling? Do you have a list of people that are important to you? You can see that if they knew Jesus, things would be different. I had a guy reach out this week who I'm friends with and through basketball, and he's got some things going on, and he reached out and said, hey, can I get together with you? I said, yeah. You know, and just in the time we were talking, you know, and he was talking about all the things going on in the world and not being content.

And I said, you know, and now granted, I'm a pastor, so I mean, it seems like it's easier sometimes. But I said, hey, I want to send you a sermon I did on contentment. It just happens to work. And I want to invite you to church. You want to come? He goes, I would love to come to your church. I was like, really? Yeah, of course you would. Yes. You know who I bragged on?

You know what? You know why I want him to come? I'm serious, because of you. Like, I was telling the team, it's really fun to be the pastor here. On Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, when I start thinking, I get so encouraged when I think about all the things that you're doing and the people that are here, and as you come in, it's pretty awesome to go to church, and I'm very excited for him to meet you, and he will be coming.

But they do the work of invitation. We also see that Christ's telling is not an option, but rather a command to the servants. And the invitation was only received through the intermediaries. Look at this. The invitation was only received because you went out and told them. Romans 10, 4. Ah, such a powerful verse. Here it is. It'll be on the screen.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How then will they believe in him in whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? Look, that doesn't mean you have to go to the street corner. But it is the art of invitation and learning how to develop that. Inviting people to knowing who Jesus is. Continuing on, looking at verse 4.

The king, again, sends servants because they refused him. And this is where grace comes in. And I love the grace because, think about it. They refused the king. What happens when you refuse the king? Usually, it doesn't go so well. Okay? I study a fair amount of medieval history. Just a fair amount. Look, I'm a pocketbook, you know, historian. I'm not Jim.

I don't remember all my dates and everything. But I know enough about medieval history. And you notice I pronounce it medieval. I just, because I like to do that nonetheless. Tomato, tomato. I know enough to know if you refuse the king. Off with your head, mate. Like, it doesn't go well. What does the God of our salvation do? He sends him back out.

He says, no, go ask him again. Go ask him again. You know, this is a parable. He doesn't only ask twice. It's just a parable. So, maybe it means he asks twice and then he does something. But I think we have a God who's willing to forgive seven times seven and on and on. I think he asks for a lifetime. I think he asks and he asks again and asks again.

And imagine, I mean, how many times has Jesus been gentle with you and asked again and given you more time and more room and more margin? This is the God who we are inviting people to know. You know, it's funny. We do use, and the church has used fire and brimstone. And I have a Catholic friend. I was raised Catholic and still feel very comfortable when I go back to Catholic Mass with friends on occasion.

Although they've changed the liturgy recently. I don't know if you know that. They caught me off guard. Like, every 500 years, they change something. So, I went in, said the wrong stuff, and I was like, ah! I don't know if you've been there recently. We have a lot of people who grew up there in that way. And he goes, you know, you Protestants, you underestimate the power of shame, fear, and guilt.

Absolutely. We do. You know, on occasion, I mean, look, God has a measure. And his grace is infinite. But at some point, he also has justice. And you see this scripture that there is the balance going back and forth between a hundred times calling you over and over again. Being patient. And then eventually having enough. And sometimes, and I would never preach this because I'm not the guy that looks at society and something happening and saying, that's God's judgment on society.

I'm just not that guy. You know, there's a lot of things in the Bible that I would die for. Or I wouldn't die or perhaps preach that just because that happened in this city or to this group, people group, or whatever, that it's God's wrath upon them. Although there happens to be a lot of Christians who make a business of doing that. I'm not that person.

I want to tell about Jesus. But I do see in this parable, there is a time where God says enough is enough. And we do have enough scriptural evidence. I'm listening through the Daily Audio Bible right now to Isaiah and Jeremiah. And I listen to it as I go to bed. But I can't get through each night. I can't get through, it takes like a month or two to go through both of those books with Brian.

I can't get through Isaiah or Jeremiah. I get like eight minutes in. I got to turn it off. I'm trying to sleep here, Brian. He's reading about, you know, and then the sword will come and the person, I mean, those books are heavy. Now, there's a lot of good stuff in those books. But there is also a lot of proof that God uses tribulation as a final means to bring people to repentance.

You know, the scripture says, you know what it says leads us to repentance? You know what the word is? His kindness. The scripture says his kindness. And one of the things I heard at the conference is as a leader of your church, you have to be the most calm person in the room. But what I would say to believers as believers, not only do we have to be the most calm people in the world, but the most kind people in the world.

I was incredibly convicted by the verse, make your gentleness, last week, evident to some. No, it doesn't say that. It says, make your gentleness evident to whom? All. So not that guy. Okay. I have a lot of gentleness. Look, I have a good measure of gentleness. But it is not evident to all. I'm not asking you to raise your hand. We're not taking a vote.

I know. My congregations have been telling me for a very long time. When push comes to shove, hopefully I'm there. This idea of letting us be the most calm person in the room and letting us be the most kind person in the room, that we juxtapose the craziness. When you see, the more society becomes chaotic, the more they look at you and go, why are you smiling?

Let me invite you. Let me tell you. And so we see that the king sends him out again and invited guests. And this time they'd already insulted him. And we see that coming to the wedding, and this is once again where we see two areas of how we come to know Christ. Is it God choosing who gets to go to heaven or do we have our own free will? And what's so interesting in this verse is both are preached.

Matter of fact, if you study the Bible, you're going to be able to prove both of them scripturally. I wonder if both are not true. I wonder if with Judas, he's like, no, I'm going to do this with Judas. But with these people, I'm going to give them a choice. I don't know. Maybe I'm breaking down your entire theology. But in this scripture, we see both.

And so whether they come to the wedding feast is up to them. They are refusing. They are saying, we will not come. It is a choice of free will according to the beginning. And once again, this is a parable. This is a parable that is meant to show, and we don't take absolutes maybe, but we know the final verse here that I read this week says, many are what?

But what? Okay, but wait, wait, wait. That just messed up the whole verse because you said that it was their choice. I don't know. But let me tell you what I do know. I'm a servant who's been called to go out and invite. Full stop. That's it. And am I inviting? Look, I really don't. I've been in this a long time now, 25, 30 years now, following Jesus, and professionally for 25.

And I've never been able to answer that question. And where I have landed is I just want to get so much better at not only telling people about Jesus, but having an authentic life that actually makes them look at him and say, you have something that I don't. That you are, you have a calm about you. You have a hope about you. You have an influence.

Whatever it is, but they see a difference between you and the world. And so he sends them out again. And then we see in verse 5 where, once again, the king finally, enough is enough. And he becomes enraged. The king becomes enraged. You know, it's interesting how we dumbed down the rage of God. Now, we've made a living on it for, you know, 2,000 years as a church.

And I understand in the last 30 we've backed off. And, you know, I'm glad we have because obviously it's about his grace. But at some point in our society, God will say enough is enough. And we've tried to, we've dumbed down the anger and the rage of God to the point where it no longer exists in many churches. And to tell people that God might be angry, might be upset, and has a right to be upset, would not be something that people want to hear.

And so obviously we're always trying to stand in the gap and assuage God. Because what is our purpose with the rage of God? First of all, it's not to add to it because you can't add to it. For you to get upset about something that you see happening in the world is to get angry to the point where you're mad at those people. Now, angry enough to change the situation is one thing.

But where you are just angry at that group of people because they are doing something against God. You cannot add anything to God's wrath. Do you get that? You being angry doesn't create anything. God already has an eternal wrath that is set up, says, for those that follow that way of life. But what is the job of Moses often? What do we see in the scriptures when God is going to bring his wrath?

Even David, when God was going to bring the wrath over the people, they stand in the gap and they say, God, no, can you give us some more time? Can we stand in the gap? Can we have grace, God? As opposed to saying, you know, let them have what they deserve. You know, I'm tempted often. I'm just going to be straight with you. I'm tempted often just to say, God, I'm going to wash my hands on it.

Let them feast on their debauchery. And let them have the results of it. And just walk away and go live a quiet life by myself with God. I've got to tell you, that is a real temptation. Why stay on the front lines? Why put myself at risk? Why take the perhaps personal or financial consequences that might come later on down the road? Why pay a cost for the love of God that some might come to know him as their father?

Over and over again. And so when you see the things going on in the world, before we get angry, before we, you know, we start getting self-righteous, let's stand back and say, you know what? God, give them another, give them another day. Give them another year. Give them another six months, perhaps. I got to tell you something. I didn't know if I was going to preach this, but I had a revelation.

I was looking at the pride march recently. And they had the rainbow flag. And I've always kind of been like, I think Jesus wants his rainbow back. Like, I'm just, you know, that's kind of what I've been thinking. Like, I've never put that on Facebook. I'm not that guy. I just don't do that. I just think Jesus wants his rainbow back. That's it. And I was like, you know, so it's, and I'm like, and I'm kind of offended for God.

You know what I mean? Like, ah, kind of offended. And I, and I, and I see that, you know, it's kind of weird because that symbol represented the destruction based on, so why would you use, you know, I'm doing, I'm deconstructing it in my mind. And I just felt like the Lord said, maybe I don't want it back. Maybe every time that that flag is unfurled in the midst of a group of people marching for this, they're unfurling my presence and I am them calling them there to me.

And I am still there for those people to call, to calling them. And they don't even know it, but there I am. And I walk amongst them with my, with my wounds and my bruises. And I say, come unto me that you might know me and know my father. And I was like, whoa. So I'm not saying I'm right, but perhaps God is like, you know what? Maybe it's on loan.

And maybe I just am still there and I haven't given up on any group of people. And you might give up or you might be upset, but just know that I will always be there until the end of time to the very last moment, reaching out my hand. I'm not saying I'm right, but it definitely changed my mind on, on that whole issue. All that to say, and you can disagree with me, write me an email.

I won't read it. Delete. Anything that softens my heart for people is a good thing. It's a really good thing. And I want, I don't want to be that self-righteous person. And so God has an anger that I don't need to add to. I don't need to whoop up. Our job is to come before God and say, God, whoever those groups of people are, God, would you bring them back to you?

I'm closing in now on the final verses we look at. Verse 10. We see a harvest amidst suffering and destruction. And I love this verse because it's very encouraging in verse 10. It says, So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. Well, no one wants to follow Jesus now.

The world's a mess. All these bad things are happening. Let's just give up. Do you understand that this might be one of the most ripe seasons ever? It says that the wedding hall was filled. If the enemy can get us to be distraught, if the enemy can get us to quit, if the enemy can get us to dehumanize people into a category and quit inviting whoever wants to come, it says even the bad people were invited.

And the wedding hall was filled. I tell you, the more I look at that, the more I look at this scripture, I began to see that perhaps we're living in one of the greatest harvest times ever. And if we want to read the headlines, we'll have no idea. And we will live angry, we'll live upset, and not see that there's a person waiting to be invited and to run to Jesus.

The final point in verse 13, many today, well, I'm actually going to leave that out because I think I already hit that well enough. And I'd rather end on a positive note is this. We see a harvest today. Can I have the worship team come forward? And as we sing this song, I want to encourage you to go out with the invitation of Jesus this week. To rethink what you think you know.

And to go out and say, Jesus, who do you want me to tell about you? And perhaps you need to be reintroduced to Jesus and the love of him yourself. Perhaps we need to defang our Christianity for a while and let our gentleness be evident to all. That we can be a church. And here's my call. That we be a church that we continue to see people baptized and follow Jesus and be saved.

Amen? Amen? Amen.