Go for God!
Luke 14:15-23
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - Feb. 17, 2008
*Are you on the way to heaven this morning? -- If you have trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then you are going to Heaven. But you are only going to Heaven because someone else was willing to go for God.
-Maybe they told you their faith story.
-Maybe they explained the Good News to you.
-Maybe they simply invited you to church.
-But God used them to change your life forever. -- And now God wants us to go.
1. Go first because of God’s great provision.
*I am talking about the rich blessings of Heaven. One of the men eating with Jesus talked about Heaven in vs. 15 when he said, “Blessed (or supremely happy) is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” That man was thinking about Heaven, and that’s a good thing to do. Most of us don’t spend enough time thinking about Heaven.
*Georgia pastor Victor Pentz once said: “Most of us have such a puny view of Heaven, we’d rather spend a wet weekend in Waynesboro.” -- And that’s about right. (1)
*Nothing against Waynesboro. After all, it’s the “Bird Dog Capital of the World!” You can look that up on e-podunk.com. But compared to Heaven, all the glories of the finest cities in the world are nothing!
*God is rich. He owns everything in the whole universe and beyond. Think about the amazing riches of the kingdom of God! God is rich. And He is richly generous. He wants many more people to have the rich blessings of Heaven. God wants to share His riches with you!
*The New Testament often stresses God’s richness toward us.
-In Rom 10:12-13. “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
-In 2 Corin 8:9, Paul said, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”
-In Eph 1:18 Paul prayed constantly for the believers that they would know “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”
-Then in Eph 2:4-7, Paul told Christians:
4. God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5. even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6. and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7. that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
*God is richly generous. -- And He wants to share His heavenly riches with you. In Luke 14:15 we see the riches of fellowship and food: “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”
*This heavenly food is just a tiny portion of the provision God has made for His people in Heaven. And it should move us to do all we can to help more people live forever in that wonderful place. Go for God because of His great provision.
2. But also go because of God’s great preparation.
*Think about the Lord’s great effort to get things ready. Jesus began His story in vs. 16-17 with these words:
16. A certain man gave a great supper and invited many,
17. And sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’
*Any decent meal takes a lot of preparation, but nothing can compare to the preparations God has been making, -- extraordinary preparations, royal preparations. He started before time began, and as He created the world, God had this forever feast in mind.
*He has gone through incredible trouble to make things ready. In the fullness of time, He even sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Because that is the only way He could make us ready for His supper.
*He was willing to do all of that because He loves us: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
*Our Heavenly Father has gone to infinite trouble to make everything ready for us, because He loves us. We need the Father’s kind of love in our lives.
*Max Lucado explained it this way: “When my oldest daughter, Jenna, was four years old, she came to me with a confession. ‘Daddy, I took a crayon and drew on the wall.’ (Max added: Kids amaze me with their honesty.)
*I sat down and lifted her up into my lap and tried to be wise.
-‘Is that a good thing to do?’ I asked her. -- ‘No.’
-‘What does Daddy do when you write on the wall?’ -- ‘You spank me.’
-‘What do you think Daddy should do this time?’ -- ‘Love me.’”
*And Max wrote: Don’t we all want that? -- “Don’t we all long for a father who, even though our mistakes are written all over the wall, will love us anyway?
*We do have that type of a father. A father who is at his best when we are at our worst. A father whose grace is a strongest when our devotion is weakest.” (2)
*Thank God for being a Heavenly Father like that! Even now Father, Son and Holy Spirit are working together to make all things ready for the supper. I love the way Jesus put it in John 14:1-3.
1. Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.
2. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
*But never forget what Jesus said next: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)
*We must go to Christ so that we will be ready. -- Then go for Christ to help others get ready. Go for God because of His great preparation.
3. But also go because of the great priority of God’s Kingdom.
*We must recognize the great priority of God’s Kingdom. So many people don’t. Jesus described these people in vs. 18-20. They had been invited to the great supper of the King!
18. But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’
19. And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’
20. Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’
*And in vs. 21, the master of the house was angry. Why was he angry? Surely there’s nothing wrong with checking out some land you bought or a new tool or toy you were able to buy. Surely we should spend time with our wife and appreciate her.
*I like this testimony from Sally Poskevich of Sioux City, Iowa.
-Sally said, “My husband, Paul, and I have been married 49 years, and he’s thanked me with a kiss for every meal I’ve made. -It doesn’t matter if it’s toast for breakfast or steak for dinner, -- he always remembers.
*When he worked, he thanked me for the lunch I packed even before he knew what was in it. I’ve made more than a few disastrous meals over those years. For those he gave me an extra kiss --‘for the effort’, he said.
*Our granddaughter calculated that Paul has thanked me 53,655 times! (3)
*I thank God for my wife! -- Even though I am way behind in thanking her!
*Most of you know that we celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary last Thursday. Mary is great! She is the best thing that has ever happened to me, except for the Lord who gave her to me. Jesus must come first, because He is first! We wouldn’t have any good thing without Him. And we have so much through Him. We must put him first!
*Some of you have heard of Emily Post. She was an expert on good manners, and had a popular newspaper column for many years in the mid-1900’s.
*Someone once wrote and asked Emily Post, “What is the correct procedure when one is invited to the White House but has a previous engagement?” Emily replied, “An invitation to dine at the White House is a command, and it automatically cancels any other engagement.” (4)
*But it’s infinitely more important to answer an invitation from the King! Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of all creation. The more we recognize the value of God’s Kingdom, the more we will be willing to go for Him. Go for God because of the great priority of His Kingdom.
4. But also go because of God’s great pity.
*Think of God’s compassionate love for all of the hurting people in our fallen world. Think of the ultimate relief that Jesus can give, the relief that only Jesus can give.
*Oh, how we need His relief! Vs. 21 reminds us, where the Master said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.”
*God cares about helpless, hopeless, hurting people.
-And He wants us to reach out to them, because He can help them like no one else can.
-God can help people who are hurting the most.
-Jesus Christ can help anybody!
-He can help you more than anybody else can.
-He can give you the relief that will last forever.
*When I think about helpless, hurting people, I think of those students who were shot last Thursday at Northern Illinois University. Five were killed and 16 more wounded in just a couple of minutes.
*Who gets killed in an oceanography class?!? How can we make sense of things like that?
-We can’t. But we can find help from the Lord. I looked back at some of the testimonies from the Virginia Tech shooting last year.
*Here is part of a testimony from a Campus Crusade for Christ volunteer. Her name is Cynthia. “I just got back from Cru tonight. We sang some songs, Jeff read a bit from the Word, and then we had students come up and share about their friends who were lost.
*I wrote down a few quotes I thought you would enjoy reading:
-‘Lauren challenged me to know scripture more.’
-A girl who served as Lauren’s orientation leader last summer said that she asked the students to share one thing they wanted the group to know about them. Lauren said, ‘I want everyone to know that I love Jesus.’
-‘Somehow when you talked to Lauren, she got to the center of your soul.’
-‘I hope I can impact in my whole life the number of people Lauren impacted in her short life.’
-‘Lauren loved to praise God. . .’
*After the students shared, we sang more songs. My favorite moment was as we sung ‘It Is Well with My Soul.’ It was incredible to be among this group of wounded people, worshipping God together, hearing and feeling the pain we all felt.
-‘Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
-Let this blest assurance control,
-That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
-And hath shed His own blood for my soul.’
*That was when I began to cry, just realizing how incredibly gracious God has been to us, to send Jesus for us, so that even when we die, there is incredible hope that we will be with him. We miss our friends, but we will see them again. And it’s all because of Jesus.
*The last verse about Christ’s return was equally powerful. I don’t think I’ve ever so greatly desired Christ’s return as during this experience. I never want to go through another event like this again, but I know I will. I know I will lose more people I love, and will experience pain from another’s sin as well as my own probably many times in my life before the end. That thought just drove me to pray, ‘Lord, I am begging you to come back soon!’
*But if He chooses to wait longer, I have the promises of God to trust in through these painful times.
-That He will never leave us,
-That nothing can separate us from His love (Rom 8),
-That goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23)
*I think often how much I wish this had happened somewhere else. I want my old life back more than anything. But at the same time, since it did happen, I’m so thankful to be here to weather this storm with the people I love here. It was wonderful to worship the Lord tonight with my brothers and sisters at VT.” (5)
*This is the ultimate hope, comfort and peace that can only come from Jesus Christ. He has great pity for the hurting people in our world. Go for God because of His great pity.
5. But also go because of God’s great passion.
*God doesn’t just suggest we invite people to the supper. He commands us to go! With a great sense of urgency He commands us to go!
*We can see the Lord’s passion in vs. 21-23:
21. So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’
22. And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’
23. Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.’
*“Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”
-Of course God is not asking us to force people to come.
-God never forces people to come to Him.
-But He wants us to urge them, plead with them.
-Do all we can to passionately persuade people to come to Jesus.
*God knows that time is short and people are lost. -He wants us to care for them the way He cares for them. We need a sense of urgency.
*Taylor Smith was chaplain-general for the British Army during World War I. And he had a simple test for all ministers who volunteered to serve as chaplains during the war.
*Holding his watch in his hand, Taylor would say to each volunteer. “I am a dying soldier. I have only one minute to live. What must I do to be saved?”
*The applicants were rejected unless they could say something like Paul said to the jailer at Philippi: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.”
*Taylor knew that the most important thing people need to hear before they die is the good news about Jesus. People need to hear. And we need to share! (6)
*Christians, this is why we must go for God. Let’s ask Him to help us do it.
1. “Heaven: A Sneak Preview” by Dr. Victor Pentz - Rev 21:1-4, 22-27 - Peachtree Presbyterian Church Feb. 8, 2004
2. Found at http://maxlucado.com
3. SermonCentral sermon “Praise Only” by Steve Shepherd - Psalm 103:1-14
4. KERUX ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION - ID Number: 33661 - SOURCE: www.sermoncentral.com, newsletter - TITLE: Command Attendance - AUTHOR: Contributed By Ed Vasicek - DATE: 1/22/07
5. Adapted from - Testimonies posted 04-20-07 [4 days after the massacre] on the website for the Campus Crusade for Christ at VA Tech (Posted by Cynthia: 12:56 am)
6. Adapted from “One thousand Evangelistic Illustrations” By Aquilla Webb - #539 “Instant in Season” p. 190
