Reclaimed - Part 2, by Pastor Rob Ketterling
Yes! How many enjoyed the video? How many are enjoying your Reclaim cards? You enjoying those? I hope you're taking advantage of them. We still have some left if you didn't get them. It's one per household. And they are all good questions for you to be able to ask each other around the dinner table as you accept this challenge in our Reclaimed series. And, of course, it's been a great opportunity for us to reclaim the table and to be able to say that family dinners are real, that they are important, they belong. And we are going to reclaim the table for all that God intended.
Of course, there are three things that you're doing along with me in this. You are going to pray over every meal. Every meal; breakfast, lunch and dinner. Doesn't matter where you are; out at a restaurant, at school, in the boardroom. It is up to you whether or not you want to take the lead and pray out loud in front of everybody, but silent prayers do count. But I'm really looking forward to see how God, you know, uses all these opportunities.
Of course, the second thing is you have three family dinners per week together during this series. And I just absolutely love seeing that, because the third thing is you're using the hashtag, #Reclaimthetable, and I have been able to see all these people reclaiming the table all over the place. I saw one couple without a table, and they are like, "We are eating without a table. Hope we win, hint, hint," you know. So use the hashtag.
You can win the table. Somebody that is not on the staff will win one of those custom-made tables by using the hashtag, #Reclaimthetable.
Of course, we have our YouVersion app that is available Saturday night and Sunday. We've got it all worked out. It's available. If you go to YouVersion, you go to Live, search River Valley, you can follow along with all the notes and all the scriptures. It is
amazing. We got it launched in this series.
Now, in this series we are talking about reclaiming the table. And not that long ago I was in Spain and I was at our campus there, and I was telling them about this series.
I said, "I'm going to do this series called Reclaim the Table. You'll do it, too." Because they do it in a two-week delay in Spanish. And I said, "It is exciting. I'm going to challenge everybody to have three family dinners per week together." And they looked at me with a blank stare. And I said, "Is that too much? I mean, because I'm just asking for three family dinners. That's all. Just per week."
And they said, "We do seven."
And I said, "Oh, yeah, see America, we hardly do one."
And right then they dropped to their knees and started praying for you guys.
They just right there, intercession. They are like, "Are you kidding me? Our friends in America!"
I mean, it was -- I couldn't believe it. They really were. They were saying, "If we don't do five, that would be a bad week. We are always having family dinner together."
As a matter of fact, they told me about a tradition they do, and I want to share this with you, kind of connecting with our Spain campus in Valencia. And Becca is going to help me out. My wife, Becca, is going to come on out. One of the things they do is every Sunday they have a meal together. And what Becca has here is a paella. You can see this, a seafood paella, and it's got rice and different things. And they feast on this every Sunday. The mom would make it. Brings all the family together. This is their traditional meal. If you miss that meal on Sunday, Sunday afternoon, if you miss that meal, it's a huge insult if you're not there with mom. You have to have family dinner. She has to see her grandchildren. She wants everyone there, and it lasts all afternoon. As a matter of fact, we do our start time in Spain based on when the family meal is done. Because they sleep in
until 11:00, then they go to mom's. And you are like, "I want to go to Spain." They sleep until 11:00, then they have their family meal. Then when they are done with that, we have church in the evening, and they come in well fed.
So this paella is going to our music team after this, and they will devour it. I know you won't touch it because there is seafood. Now, because I did something a while back in another sermon, will you graciously take your seat in a comfortable seated chair? I love you so much. All right, there you go. If you missed that, you probably weren't in that sermon. Take your seat. Okay, so I did that, yeah.
By the way, we are giving away one paella per campus, and here is how we are drawing that. A person that signs their kids up for GO Kids, we are going to draw from that group, and one family per campus will win a gift certificate to the restaurant Café Ena. They graciously gave us that one, and then we purchased some gift cards. So you're going to go there and enjoy paella. Love for you to Instagram it and reclaim the table at Café Ena. So we are excited about this as we continue reclaiming the table.
We are going to reclaim the table for outreach. Last week we reclaimed it for discipleship. This week we are going to reclaim it for outreach. And we are going to realize this: Jesus eats with anyone. Jesus eats with anyone. He eats with you, he eats with me, he eats with the least of these. He eats with the people that can't even imagine that Jesus would want to eat with them.
And I love this great book that Tim Chester wrote, A Meal With Jesus. And I'm using some of the stuff from that book. He just opened up my eyes to that thought that Jesus does eat with anyone. And when you look in the Bible, you will see that Jesus eats with anyone. How many know that when you share with people, like, God loves you, he wants to forgive you, he wants to be your Lord and Savior, and you throw out the invitation of outreach, you throw out the invitation of God's love, how many know that sometimes
people are like, "I don't know. I don't know if God wants to eat with me. I don't know if God would invite somebody like this. Does God really love somebody like me?"
And sometimes churches have given an attitude, like, "I don't know if you're coming to our church." We don't need to do that! We need to let people know that Jesus will eat with anyone and be loving and kind and saying, "Come on, Jesus will eat with anyone."
Some people can look at the Old Testament and look at certain people and think that God doesn't want to eat with anyone. I think if you were to look at Moses and you'd say, "Does God want to eat with anybody?" Because Moses looks angry. Moses has got Commandments and he is mad and he's throwing them down and he's shouting. And his family doesn't want to eat with him. I don't know if God wants to eat with me.
You might look at the prophets. How many know, if you look at the Old Testament prophets, you might not be convinced that God wants to eat with anybody. I mean, you've got Elijah calling down fire. And yet you're trying to say, "God loves you." I mean, Elijah is good if you have a barbecue. You know, call it down.
You've got Jonah. Think about if you invited Jonah to dinner, and you said God loves people, and Jonah is there and he's saying, "I wish you were all dead. I wish he would have killed you. Now I've got to eat with you." Some of you don't know the story. All right.
Jeremiah, if you invited him to dinner, how many know he would be weeping the whole time and crying.
And if you think about the disciples, they didn't even realize that Jesus wanted to eat with anyone. They were thinking the wrong thoughts. They were thinking that Jesus only wanted to eat with the good people, with the chosen people. Jesus was saying, "I want to meet and eat with everyone."
His disciples are like, "Do you want us to call down fire on those guys?" He said, "No, we not doing fire."
They are amazed that he would talk to a woman about eating and drinking and living water. And they are thinking, "I can't believe he's talking food and drink with her. That isn't the way that it's done."
The disciples are thinking, "Keep the kids away. Kids ruin a meal with Jesus.
Keep them away."
And Jesus is like, "No. I invite the kids here. There is a play place. It is on my knee. They are going to be right there. Kids are good. We don't shush them away."
So the disciples don't even realize Jesus wants to eat with everyone and anyone. All throughout the Gospel of Luke we see this. We are going to take a look at some of these stories. We are going to see different things there that Luke just blows it open, and he says, "Jesus wants to eat with you. Jesus wants to eat with everyone."
And at the end of this service at all of our campuses you're going to have an opportunity to respond to that and say, "I want Jesus to eat with me. I want to eat with Jesus."
Luke 15:1-2, the religious people, they were so upset, in Luke 15:1-2, Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
You've got to understand Jesus eats with anyone, and it's going to challenge us to open up our table and say more people are welcome at our table. We are going to use our table for outreach to reach people far away from God. In Matthew 11 Jesus got the title "friend of sinners." The religious people thought they were going giving him a terrible title. "This guy is a friend of sinners."
And Jesus embraced that. "You are right. I am a friend of sinners. I will
welcome them. I want to eat with them. I want to bring them the good news."
Now, you've got to understand in the time of Jesus, you've got to understand that in the time of Jesus who you ate with was theology. Who you ate with determined what you believed about God. And if you believed in God, you had a strict rule of who you could eat with and who you couldn't eat with. And there were rules about how to cleanse things and take care of things, and what you ate said what you believed about God. And Jesus is changing it all up. I mean, on top of all this, with all the rules of who you could eat with and who you couldn't eat with, there were also rules about what you could do with your dishes.
If you gave your dish to a poor person, your dish was seen to be unclean. So you had to cleanse it and go through all these ceremonies. So that's why they were like, "I don't even want to eat with poor people because they contaminate the food, they contaminate the dishes. They can contaminate me."
And Jesus is like, "We are getting ready to change all of that. Everything is going to change." And that's why they are so upset with him in Luke.
One theologian believes Jesus was killed because of the people he ate with; that Jesus would eat with anyone and they were not happy with that. On top of all this animosity going on around the table, they didn't rejoice when one sinner repented. We rejoice when anyone gives their life to Jesus. We think all heaven is rejoicing. That's what Jesus said; all heaven is rejoicing. But they actually thought sinners were made to stoke
the fires of hell, and they would think it's going to be a great day when you die and go to hell and the flames get hotter. So you've got all this going on, and that is not God's heart. And so they are eating meals and thinking those people are made for the fire, and we are enjoying our good meal, and then along comes Jesus eating and drinking with anyone and everyone. So we are going to take a look at this. We are going to take a look at Luke, a few highlights, and then we are going to get to Luke Chapter 7 because there is an amazing
dinner story there.
In Luke 5 Jesus is eating with a tax collector. He's eating with a tax collector. And it's interesting that while he is eating with this tax collector, the religious people add this group to it. They say he is eating with tax collectors and sinners. They don't like who he is eating with so much that they even give the people worse titles than they already own.
Can I tell you this, Church? We don't need to give people any extra titles. No extra titles. Let's welcome people to our table.
In Luke 14, Jesus talks about the banquet, and he's saying, "Hey, guys, I want you to change your guest list." He said, "Instead of turning into a networking thing and only inviting the good people to dinner, what I want you to do is invite my guest list; the poor, the lame, the crippled."
And they are going, "Huuuh, the people that will contaminate our meal."
And Jesus is like, "Yeah, that's who I want at dinner with you. I want people that can't pay you back. I want you to invite the least of these to dinner." And they are so upset with this they change the whole conversation, and Jesus won't let them. And he goes right into the parable of the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost son. He is saying, "There is a different guest list, and I'm willing to eat with anyone."
In Luke 19 we have the story of Zacchaeus. He's a tax collector. He wants to see Jesus, and he can't see him. He's short. So he climbs up in a tree and he's looking to see Jesus, and Jesus walks right over to him. Now, you've got to understand the religious people of that day wouldn't even go near the tree because they wouldn't want any part of Zacchaeus, his clothing or anything, to fall on them and make them unclean, because he's on the do-not-eat list. So they don't even want to go close to Zacchaeus. And Jesus goes over near him and says, "Zacchaeus, get down here." Not only is he talking to Zacchaeus, he's like, "I'm eating at your home."
And they are like, "No, he's not. He can't do that!"
And he goes there, and the interesting thing, Zacchaeus finds salvation, and immediately he says, "Lord, I am giving away half of everything I own!" And I think that's actually the very first Kingdom Builders dinner right there. Because he was required to give away ten percent. Generous was twenty percent, and he went to fifty percent. God is doing something amazing at the dinner table, and they still haven't figured it out.
So in this story in Luke Chapter 7, we are going to take a good look at this, this dinner experience that's going on. And Jesus is eating with religious Pharisees and he is eating with somebody who is a streetwalker, a prostitute. This is her former life. She has experienced the love of Jesus. But this is who is at the table and something is going on, and the dynamic is going on and it is getting really messy. And we are going to pick it up here in Luke Chapter 7, in Luke 7:36.
36 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38 As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said.
41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so
he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
There is so much going on in this meal that we don't even fully understand, and I'm going to try to get you into their culture to understand how messy this meal was. Jesus, first of all, accepts an invitation of a religious Pharisee who does not like him. Now, we know that he doesn't really like him because he doesn't do the three things that he's supposed to do, and we'll get to that in just a minute.
I think this guy is what I would called a rich celebrity collector. Okay? He was a celebrity collector. And it was in Jesus' time, it was before Jesus, it happens today. Rich people like to be seen with celebrities. They pay great amounts of money to go to political things, to be seen with the president. They pay great amounts of money to win a dream thing to be able to have dinner with a celebrity. They want to get at a table. They want to get a picture. They want to get an Instagram. That's what's going on today. This guy was a
celebrity collector.
And I think about this. Sometimes in life as you start to elevate your platform, people invite you to dinners that you never got invited to before. It's starting to happen to Becca and I, where we get invited to certain dinners that we never got invited to before.
And sometimes I wonder if it's celebrity collecting that's going on. A friend of mine was invited to the White House to have dinner with President Obama, and he thought it was just amazing. He got to sleep at the White House and to do that, and he just kind of wonders, "Did he hear what I had to say, or was it just celebrity collecting?"
Another guy I know, Donald Trump called him up and said, "Have dinner with me." A pastor. He said, "Let's have dinner." And every time that Donald is with famous people he calls this pastor and says, "Hey, do you want to talk to this pastor?" It's celebrity collecting. It happens all the time. That's what happened in Luke Chapter 7. He's
collecting celebrities, and Jesus is the celebrity of the day, and he wants him to have a meal at his house.
The reason we know he was celebrity collecting and not loving Jesus is because he doesn't do the three things he's supposed to do. He's supposed to greet Jesus at the door with both hands on his shoulders and give Jesus the kiss of peace. He doesn't do that. He doesn't do that. He is supposed to have someone wash his feet, because he is walking in sandals, it's dusty and dirty, it is the honorable thing to do this with your guest, to wash. Doesn't have it done for Jesus. He is supposed to put a little bit of perfume or cologne, if you will, on Jesus. As a matter of fact, everyone at the dinner is supposed to have a little bit of cologne on them so that they all smell the same because you don't know how clean that guy is. He doesn't do any of those things. And so he is completely disrespecting Jesus.
And as the meal is going on, people are funneling around the table, because
here is what would happen. There would be a table in the middle of the room, and there would be pillows there. The table was much lower than the tables we use today. And they would be leaning on the pillow, leaning into dinner, with their feet out behind them. And so they would be here at the dinner, and people would fill in the big room all around them. It was the modern day equivalent for those guys of live streaming. Other people were not invited to the meal but could watch the meal. They couldn't talk at the meal, but they could be around the perimeter and live stream the meal. Okay? So they are there and these people are live streaming. There are all these people around watching, and Jesus is looking at Simon and Simon is looking at Jesus.
And as they're talking, having their meal, this lady comes in, and she's back there and she is standing behind Jesus, and she starts crying. And the Bible tells us she is crying with such intensity, the same word for her tears is the word for, like, rainstorm.
Rainstorm. She is crying crying. And his feet are being covered with tears. And then she does something that is major do-not-do. Now, we don't understand this is a major
do-not-do, but she let's down her hair. And in their culture -- and I don't mean to be crude or sexual in this -- but in their culture that was almost being like without a top. It was that bad of a taboo. We think, "Her hair down?" That's how bad it was.
And so Simon is like, "This is not good. She is crying. I know what kind of girl she is, and she just let down her hair, and now she is touching -- she is kissing Jesus. She is touching Jesus. She is kissing Jesus. Her hair is down. She's crying on Jesus." And then she wastes that perfume and does this, so all this is going on.
And here is what Simon is thinking. "If he was a prophet..." and they believed that prophets had special discerning powers. "If he was a prophet, he would know who was touching him, and he would not let her touch him."
Here is what Jesus is thinking. "If Simon knew who he was having dinner
with, he'd get in on grace right now!"
Here is why all the rules could be broken. Because Jesus was bringing grace to the table. They only thought forgiveness was in the temple, and Jesus was saying, "Guess what? It's a new day. Grace is coming to the table." They don't have to go to the temple anymore. They can come to your table, my table, everybody's table. Jesus is eating with anybody, and he's bringing grace to the table. And here is what's happening. In dirty dinners, grace is cleansing the dirty dinner. That's what's going on. And they can't get it.
They can't understand it. Grace is there, and grace is like the Purell for the soul, if you will.
And in the midst of things that are way out of bounds, people that shouldn't be touching them, dirty dishes, and all this rule breaking and all this, Jesus is saying, "You
don't understand. Isaiah prophesied about this in Isaiah. He talked about this, that there would be a day, a banquet for all people, for all nations of all people. God doesn't just want you guys in on the banquet. He wants everyone in on the banquet." And it's not come to that table in the temple; it is the table is coming to them. Grace is going to everyone, and God will have a bunch of people at his dinner, at his table. Grace is cleansing this up.
And I know that for people that are far away from God, and maybe you're in our church or at one of our campuses, and you're like, "Yeah, but I'm a terrible sinner. I'm the worst of the worst." I'll telling you this, Jesus wants to eat with you. I wish I could eat with you. I wish that physically our pastors could eat with the worst sinner at our campus, but I don't know how we would do that. Like, fill out this form, we'll see how bad you are. We are not going to do that, you know? But this church should be welcoming, inviting.
Your table, your home should be a place where anyone could eat.
Recently I was in Scotland and I was at the baggage claim talking to this guy about nothing to do with spiritual stuff. He is swearing away. And then all of a sudden he said, "What do you do for a living?"
I said, "I'm a pastor."
He said, "I know one pastor. He did my wedding." You know, we started talking a little more, talking a little more, and then I challenge him, and then there was convicting, and I won't go into all the details. But at the moment he is like, "I need to give that away," and what he was called to give away was worth $3,000. And he was like, "This is amazing." He goes, "Do you want to go have a beer?" That's what he said to me. "Do you want to go have a beer?"
I said, "I'm going to this church thing."
He's like, "Oh, are you going to be around? I could hang with you and have a beer." Now, I totally understood what he meant. I totally understood what he meant. He was saying, "I think you're the kind of pastor that would eat with anyone." I hope that our church has the label of a type of people that will eat with anybody. He wasn't saying, "Let's go get drunk." He was saying, "I want to invite you. I want to bring you to another level in my life. I want to bring you in. And I would welcome you to my table."
That's what Jesus is saying. "I want to bring you to another level." And he's welcoming anyone to his table.
And here's the thing about this. It's messy. Who you eat with today is still messy. How many know that you put on the Instagram, like, "Had dinner with so-and-so."
And they are like, "Oh, I can't believe that. I can't believe they did that." "I had dinner here with so-and-so."
"Oh, I don't know that I would eat there."
Christians are judging. It is messy. There is a tension. And they had to deal with the tension. We have to deal with the tension. But we are bringing grace to the table. Come on, when grace is invited to a dirty dinner, grace wins. All right? And we've got to deal with this tension here. Okay?
If a nurse worked with terminally ill people, you wouldn't say, "Eeww, why did you pick that?" You would say, "You're a saint." But if a Christian eats with somebody who doesn't fit your description of who is acceptable to eat with, you are like, "Eeww, I don't know!" They ought to be seen as a saint going out there and eating with people you would never think of eating with.
Now I will say this. If you are invited to a celebrity dinner and, you know, somebody is like a celebrity collector, or if you're invited to a dinner that has a bunch of people at it that don't fit the list of what you typically eat meals with, here is the thing: Don't trim away the truth. Don't be there all excited about their celebrity status. Don't be excited about your Instagram. Don't be excited about the great dinner that you're having. Be excited about the fact that they invited grace to show up at the table. Be excited about that and don't trim it away. Jesus told the truth. He didn't say, "Don't worry about that. We are just going to eat and drink. Don't worry about that." When they brought it up, he dealt with it with truth in love and lots of grace, but he didn't trim it away. So don't go trim it away if you're invited there. You're doing a huge disservice if you trim away the truth and just enjoy the fun.
So Jesus ate with anyone. I want to make this very clear. In this tension he ate with anyone. He lived with his disciples and he rebuked the religious phonies. So we can eat with anyone. Just because we eat with them doesn't mean it is an endorsement of their lifestyle. We can eat with anyone, but we live and we do discipleship and life with our other believers, and we rebuke any time we see judgmental Pharisees.
But we need to reclaim the table for outreach. And I think our church is ready to do this, and I want to give you some practical things. You have 21 meals a week, 21. If you do three meals a day, you have 21 a week. Some of you took me up on that seven meals a day. You're like, "I've got 49." All right, you've got 49; the rest of us have 21, all
right. Use those meals. Don't waste a meal. Don't waste a meal. Use them for outreach. Reclaim the table for outreach. Especially use your special days; holidays, the Super Bowl, National Night Out, your neighborhood party, weddings, baptisms, dedications. Open up the guest list, get people there. Open it up and take advantage of those opportunities with those meals to use them for outreach. Who should you invite? Expand the guest list.
One of the people you should invite are people that are lonely. In 2010 the AARP did a survey, not of just retired people, but of all people in America. And they said 35 percent of people are lonely. Lonely. Invite them to dinner.
As a matter of fact, I'll give you somebody to invite to dinner. Invite my mom to dinner, all right? She is a widow, and after last week's sermon she is like, "I almost stood up and said, 'You don't have enough dinners with your mom.'"
And I was like, "Sorry, Mom. I'm doing it with Becca." She is like, "That doesn't count."
I said, "Well, I'll give you a commercial in the next sermon." So here it is. Take my mom to dinner. Invite her to dinner. Pay for dinner. I'm telling you, she is an excellent counselor. She's got unbelievable wisdom. It's worth at least a hundred dollars. And I will tell you this, the bigger the sinner, the more you'll enjoy her. All right? If you don't know Jesus, she has all the grace in the world for you, and she will love to talk to you. If you love Jesus, she will love to talk to you. If you are a phoney, do not invite her to dinner. You have been warned, all right?
I love you, Mom. Love you. Love you. All right. Okay.
It's true, but she is a widow, and she is like, "I need this. I want to do this. I want to be around these people." As a matter of fact, the Holtes invited my mom to dinner and another widow, Rachel Awe, to dinner just because of this series. That's the church being the church. That's the church being the church. I absolutely love that.
So invite some lonely. Invite your coworkers. Invite your kids' friends. Why not? Invite your kids' friends and their parents. Why now? Why not get to know them?
Invite their teachers. Invite your neighbors.
This is interesting. Sarah Harmeyer did this thing called the Neighbor's Table. She did the Neighbor's Table. She moved to Dallas and said, "I don't know people. I'm an event planner. What do you want me to do with my gifting, God?"
And God said, "Build a big table. Put it in your backyard and invite 500 people to dinner this year."
So she did. There is a picture of the table. She invited 500 -- not at one time.
All throughout the year she invited 500 people to dinner. And she said, "I'm just going to open up my table and I'm going to use the gift I have."
Okay, if Sarah can do 500, can you do 50? Can you do your three immediate neighbors? Can you do the most unlikely to say yes and just see if they will say yes to dinner? Let's open up our table and invite all these people.
People will say, "Well, if I do that, what shall we talk about?" Now, I know what they mean. What they mean is how are we going to get this to Jesus? What about the spiritual stuff? Okay, here's a couple things. Just pray over your meal. Just pray over your meal. Just go ahead and pray. Say, "Hey, I'm glad you are here for dinner, I'm glad we're out to eat, I just want to pray over the meal," and you can pray over the meal. It's so simple.
We had one neighbor in our old neighborhood where we used to live, they would never come to church, never ever, ever, ever. So we invited them over for dinner. And we said, "We are going to pray over the meal."
They are like, "Okay."
And so we fold our hands, and they are kind of, like, here's the church and the
steeple and the people. They are like, "I don't know how to do this."
And I was like, "Do you ever go to church, Christmas, Easter, anything?" They are like, "Never. Nothing."
And I just thought, okay, here is the cool thing. I couldn't get them to the temple, okay? But I got them to the table. Grace showed up at the table. That's the way Jesus is saying, "I changed it. They don't have to go to the temple anymore. The table is where grace can show up."
So you can do that. And you can just pray over the meal. You can tell stories. I mean, think about it, you belong to a church that gives you plenty of stories. You can talk about the Global Team you went on within four years of joining the church. You can talk about your Lifegroup. You can talk about your serving. You can talk about working with kids. How many know if you need a story, work with kids. They always have amazing stories.
I'll never forget when my younger brother Ryan gave his life to Jesus. He was just a little guy, five, six, seven years old. Mom and dad explained to him that Jesus was in his heart. And we were at the table one night, we had just finished a great dinner. He said, "Mom and Dad, I am so full Jesus is all covered up with food." I thought that was pretty cool.
Just talk about life. There is things to do that -- use the Reclaim cards. You know, stack the deck; put a couple spiritual ones on top. I don't know, just do whatever.
But realize this, you can reclaim the table for outreach.
Here is another thing. You are there to bring the light, not the fight. It's not apologetics. You are there to bring the light, not the fight. So you bring the light. Here is what is going to happen. People are going to see differently now. They are going to see because you brought the light to the table. You know what? They are going to see clearly.
They are going to see hope. You are going to bring soul power, not solar power, but soul power to the table by bringing the light. And they are going to think, "It is possible to have a good marriage." "It is possible to be single and be happy." "Maybe there IS healing." "Maybe there is hope for a person like me." "I didn't know that they were worse than me, and they are my neighbor." I mean, you are bringing hope to the table. You're bring light there, and that's what's going on. It is amazing.
Here is another thing, do not let the fact that you are not Martha Stewart keep you from hosting people. Okay? There is a big difference between hosting and entertaining, okay? Let me be clear. Entertaining, if that's your gift, roll with it. I mean, if you want to have your guests show up and they are like, "Wow, what an ice sculpture!"
And you're like, "Yeah, the kids and I, we just sculpted it, you know, after we built the table you're at during their free time. And, of course, we'll be serving, you know, the free range chicken we just got done plucking." I mean, If that's your deal, do it, okay? And invite me, all right? If that's your deal. But that's just hospitality. That's all you're doing. Just hospitality.
Here is the thing about family dinner; the important thing is family, not the dinner. Who cares about the food? It's family. Get people together and invite them to take another step closer to the family of God. The word for hospitality is the Greek word that means friend and stranger brought together. That's what you are doing. You are bringing friends and strangers. You're just saying let's bring them all together and do this.
I love what chef and theologian Simon Carey Holt said. He said, "At the base of hospitality, it's about providing space for God's spirit to move." That's all you're doing.
You're bringing people to the table and providing space for God's spirit to move. Man, this is an exciting thing.
As I close, I just want to be very clear. Jesus eats with anyone. That includes
me, you, the worst of these. You might be here saying, "I'm the worst of the worst of the worst." Jesus wants to eats with you. And here and at all of our campuses we are going to have an opportunity for people to give their life to Jesus Christ and for them to say, "I want you to eat with me. I want to eat with you."
In Luke 22:30 it says you are blessed to eat at his table. He brought grace and he provided a way of forgiveness. He died on the cross so you can be forgiven.
And I love what Revelation Chapter 3 says. It is Jesus. He says, Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. That's what he's saying. He doesn't mean just a meal. He means "I want to be your friend. I want to be your savior. I want to be the one that forgives you." He brought grace to the table. He died so you could be forgiven, so the list could be expanded to anyone. That's you, that's me, that's everyone that will call on the name of the Lord.
The Bible says, if you accept the invitation -- you should feel him knocking right now. I know there are people, they feel him knocking. If you accept that invitation, the Bible says in Revelation 19:9, Then the angel said to me, "Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" And he added, "These are the true words of God." He says there is going to be a day there is going to be an amazing feast in heaven, and it's going to be the best most amazing feast you've ever seen.
As a matter of fact, if you think about this, people with weddings throw out the best of the best of the best. We are talking God. God is going to throw the wedding feast
of all wedding feasts that will blow the budget and won't even scratch the surface. It is going to be incredible. And he says, "I'm inviting you to that." You have to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Grace has been brought to the table, and you can accept it.
Now, here's the thing. Let me close with this. Whenever you get an invitation
to dinner, what's one of the first questions you're thinking? What do you wear? What do you wear? You might even call a friend, like "What are you guys wearing to the dinner?" I mean, you're going, "Jacket? No jacket? Jacket? No jacket? No jacket? For sure no jacket? You are not backing out on me, right?" Or you get an invitation, like, "I don't know what snappy casual means. I don't know how to dress that way. I don't know!" So you're terrified. What does snappy casual mean, you know? Okay, and so you're always worried.
Okay, can I tell you this? Here's what happens when you get invited to give your life to Jesus and you hear something like this: Jesus wants to eat with you. You go, "No, I don't know. I'm not clean enough. I don't know if I'm wearing the right things. I don't know." And there's a huge stress. "I don't know if I can wear that. I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if I can wear it."
And Jesus says, the invitation says, "Come as you are. I know how you look, I know how you dress, I know what you think. I know what you did last Friday. Come as you are. Come to this table. I'll forgive you and we will go from there."
So if you could bow your heads and close your eyes, here and at all of our campuses there is going to be an opportunity for you to have Jesus invite you to the table.
If that's you and your heads are bowed and your eyes are closed, this is your moment. This is your moment. This is your moment for you to say, "I want you to forgive me. I want in. I want in." And I'm sure there are people here that will do this. In just a moment, if that's
you, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand, look up at me, I'll acknowledge it, and then you can put it down. But this is your moment to say, "I'm in. I understand Jesus wants to eat with a person like me. He does." I know it seems too good to be true. You don't have to change anything at this moment.
Jesus says, "Come to the table and I'll eat with you."
If that's you, and you're saying, "Pastor Rob, include me in the closing prayer,
I'm ready to do this. I'm ready to be forgiven." If that's you, with everyone's head bowed and their eyes closed, would you slip up a hand and say, "That's me. Include me in that prayer." As I look around this room, would you -- yes, I see your hand. Are there others? Yes, I see your hand. All across this place, raise your hand. Yes, I see your hand. Yes, yes, I see your hand. Are there others? I'm still looking. Yes, I see your hand. Yes, yes, I see your hand. One more time I'm going to look across the room with your heads bowed and your eyes closed. My right, your left, is there anyone else as I just scan across there. I'm kind of looking at the left center, and now I'm looking at the center.
Let me just stop and say if you are watching online, this is for you, too. I can't see your hand, but Jesus does. He wants to eat with you. You might be looking around at the messy table you're at, the messy life that you're in, and you think, "I couldn't even go to church with where I'm at right now."
But God says, "I want to eat with you. It counts for you, too."
Anyone else to my left, your right? You're saying I want in, I want in, I want in.
I'm glad we waited.
I want to pray a prayer, and I want you to repeat this line after me. And the people around you are going to pray it with you out loud. No one prays this prayer alone. We are going to pray it with you. And we are going to pray this prayer that Jesus will forgive you of your sins, and he will come and eat with you, which really means is he going to forgive you. So let's pray this prayer.
Dear Lord Jesus, I'm sorry for my sins and all that I've done wrong, and I accept that forgiveness that you're offering me today. I believe you died on the cross and rose from the dead so I could be forgiven. You're bringing me grace, and I receive it. I pledge to live for you for the rest of my life. Give me the strength to do that. In your name I pray. Amen.
So, Lord, I thank you for those that prayed that prayer, so simple, so true. Right now you said you've forgiven them. They stepped another step closer. Grace has come to the table and it has come to their life, and we rejoice and celebrate that together. We rejoice and celebrate that together. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for this grace. We thank you that you eat with anyone. We thank you that these people are now part of your family, part of that forgiven group. May they extend their table to the next person that needs to join you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen and amen.
About a half dozen people raised their hand to do that decision. Can you thank God for that? Yes, yes.
I'm going to have you stand, and I want to talk to those six people real quick. And as I do, prayer teams, could you make your way forward? Could you stand? For those people that made that decision, I want to do two things for you. I want to give you this
Now What book. Matter of fact, if you are watching online, just e-mail us at Rivervalley.org. Just find it on the website. Email us. We will send this to you free. It's just a gift. We won't ask you for money. We won't follow up in that way, but we will just be a church that loves and resources you.
For those of you here, we'd love for you to get this from the prayer team members or at the Welcome Center. Just get it. It says, "Now what do I do?" I helped write this with our team.
And then the other thing is before you go to bed tonight, tell someone you gave your life to Jesus. Tell someone. You're thinking, "Who?" Tell somebody friendly, tell somebody at church, tell somebody. Just say, "I did it. I gave my life to Jesus." Out loud do it. I think it is very important that you do that before you go to bed tonight. Telling somebody and getting this book.
And then for all of us, let's expand our table. Let's use it for outreach. Let's
think of how we can do this. How is God calling us to get involved in inviting people, eating with people, and not saying always, "Come to the church." Which you can still say, "Come to our church." But it's saying, "It's coming to the table near you, grace." It's like a movie line; "Grace, coming to a table near you." You know, that's what it's like. That's what it's like. Be commissioned to bring grace to the table and use it for outreach. Let's reclaim it.
In Jesus' name. Amen? Amen. God bless you.
