Window on the
World
Window on the
World
From Randal Dick
Superintendent of Missions
Eddie Gibbs is a professor in the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. The following is an edited version of a sermon he gave to WCG members Sept. 25 at the festival in Palm Springs, California.
By Eddie Gibbs
As a professor involved in cross-cultural ministry, I have to teach our students a basic lesson: Words do not contain their meaning.
The hymn "Amazing Grace" reached the pop charts in Britain in the 1960s. Most people thought that grace was the name of a girl. This to them was a love song. They had no memory for biblical stories, no knowledge of biblical terms.
So when we come to the words of the Bible, we need a great deal of biblical content to be able to interpret those words rightly because words do not contain their meaning.
In Luke 14 Christ talked about banquets. Every culture celebrates its special events by feasting. For our own, we spend much time working on the details, the menu, the guest list. You know, no other banquet can be compared with the banquet Christ here refers to. This banquet had been anticipated and prepared for hundreds of years.
The prophets talked of this event. David looked forward to it (Psalm 23:5). Yes, the whole of Israel, despite themselves, looked forward to this feast at the coming of the Messiah.
Indeed, David understood this to be a banquet beyond death itself. This banquet is prepared for all peoples (Isaiah 25:6-9). It is a time that looks beyond the sufferings of this earth.
Yet Israel throughout the centuries struggled with this concept, and tended to narrow its vision, restricting it to its own people. But that was not God's intention, and Christ's coming signaled the invitation to everyone. Wherever Jesus is present that invitation is repeated: "Come, for everything is now ready."
Were the people Jesus addressed on this occasion ready to respond? Are we ready to respond ourselves?
Jesus always took the occasion to help clarify the gospel. We learn in Luke 14 this was no social gathering. Jesus had been invited to be watched, closely criticized. The host had carefully chosen guests who would help prepare, as it were, a report against Christ.
The Pharisee had arranged the occasion, not to honor the guests, but to boost his own image.
We are here by grace and not by right. An amazing generosity by God toward sinners. Simple words that need a great deal of biblical content to interpret their full meaning rightly. Words do not contain their meaning.
In this story Jesus contrasts the banquet at which he now sits as a guest with the banquet at which he is to be host. The contrast could not be greater.
Jesus was surrounded by religious legalists, choosy about the company they kept, preferring to sound spiritual, rather than personally to be spiritual.
The story continues. Christ's banquet is now prepared. Many guests invited. Everything is ready. Here's your invitation. It's time to make a move.
In the story it is the circumcised who are invited, the Jews. All of these people had promised to come. But, in fact their response was insincere, they really meant no.
Then it was circumcision. Today it is the baptized who are invited. Jesus says come, everything is now ready. And how we respond to that invitation demonstrates whether our personal religion is one of legalism or one of grace.
Legalistic Christians are deaf or simply disobedient to the invitation of their Savior. They want the kind of religion in which they are in control and one where they can choose the company they keep for themselves.
Legalistic Christians are those who decide for themselves their own priorities.
Legalistic religion is one of conventions and convenience.
And so the big question stands before us: When God is ready, are we ready and responsive?
In the story the legalistic ones determined to set their own boundaries. Nothing was to upset their own priorities. The words they heard did not contain meaning to them. Their reasons for not coming became lame excuses. The issue was one of priority.
We have people today who claim that their business interests prevent them from responding to Christ's invitation. One of the guests here had just married--so he couldn't come. Well, who said the spouse was excluded?
The age of idolatry is not passed. Anything that comes between ourselves and the Lord is an idol. If Jesus is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.
Our presence at the Lord's table is not to exclude others, rather it is in order to invite others (1 John 1:3).
In the story, the Master orders his servants to go out quickly and bring in others. But still there are empty seats. So he sends them out again. He wants a full house!
As Jesus looked around that table of prominent Pharisees, the kind of people that he mentioned in his story were nowhere in sight. The very ones excluded were the ones who are now invited to replace them. That statement must have made them squirm uncomfortably.
Who is invited to our fellowship? Who is excluded? Scripture records that Jesus associated with some tacky people.
The Salvation Army talks about their fellowship as "from the guttermost to the uttermost." Are we prepared in our fellowship to have a questionable taste in friends, believing that the gospel can indeed transform people? That's the message of Jesus we read in this passage.
Notice how it is a world-embracing invitation. Even when there remain empty seats, God extends the invitation wider. God is not pleased with empty seats.
When we compare Luke's version with Matthew, it is only Luke who mentions this wider search.
"Go out into the roads, the country lanes and make them come in so that my house may be full." Now there is an even more compelling urgency, designed to shake the complacency of the original group that turned down the invitation.
The subsequent history of the church is that of filling the house through the worldwide proclamation of God's witnesses.
It's my privilege to visit many parts of the world and to see the growth of the church. Throughout the world there is an invitation to the banquet, and I have seen the response, young and old.
I wonder if you realize that there is no century in the whole of church history like the present one for the growth of the church. I want you especially to understand that because I know there have been lean and hard times here in the Worldwide Church of God. It's hard and lean in many parts of the West, but not necessarily in the rest of the world.
This is a time of ingathering, and my prayer continually for the WCG is that you will be a part--increasingly so--of that ingathering. Be encouraged by the growth you too are experiencing in other parts of the world.
But the final words of Christ's story are somber indeed. "I tell you not one of those who are invited will taste of my banquet" (Luke 14:23). That should have shaken the complacency of all those who sat around that Pharisee's table.
This was never God's intention. Abraham, it was intended, was to be a blessing to the world. Israel was to have been a light to the nations. Jesus, the Savior of the world, was born a Jew. The disciples and the first churches were all Jewish. The apostle Paul, a Jew, does not abandon hope that his people will fulfill their God-given role (Romans 11:13-15). There is a future hope for God's people (verse 25).
Let us now revisit that story and imagine a different response.
Those for whom the banquet was originally prepared, instead of declining, say an eager "yes" to the invitation.
"We gladly and gratefully respond. We believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God and Savior of the world. We recognize our need for forgiveness and come to the foot of the cross so that the blood of Christ can cleanse us from our sins. And we accept the wedding garments of the bride of Christ.
"We wear them at the table and we come joyfully as invited guests to the table of the Lord."
Now the meaning behind the words are understood.
Go to a Chinese restaurant. Their tradition is to give far more than you can eat. Usually they encourage you to take away the excess, to share it with others, inviting them to come themselves.
We are encouraged to take away, to share with others, and to invite them. Taste and see that the Lord is gracious (Psalm 34:8).
May we not be gluttonous Christians, keeping everything for ourselves, but rather dispersing Christians. You and I, however, must be feeding at the banquet table. Famished Christians are in no position to feed the world.
Let us take of these spiritual treasures, this rich food, feasted and nourished, and then help a hungry world to take their places at God's table with us.
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2000