No More Excuses
(Luke 14:16-24)
But He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ “Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’ “Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’
“And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’
“And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ “And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’ ”
In this parable we see many things. First I think that most of us could see that the man who was giving the banquet is God and the slave that He sent out is Jesus. The people that Jesus was sent to are the Jews. So it is the Jews that got the first invitation to the dinner and those are the ones that made the excuses. Each one has an excuse as to why they cannot come, they think they are good reasons but we will see that they are not. Then moving on in the parable we see that the man sends His slave out into the streets and lanes of the city. Now we should understand that in the streets and the lanes of the city there are only other Jews. The man (God) has not yet given up on the Jews, even though the first chosen ones have rejected his invitation. It seems as though there are some of the Jews that the slave has gone out again to have come back with the slave to the dinner and have accepted the invitation. But what is next, we see that there is more room, all the chairs around the table are not yet taken. So next the man tells the slave to go out into the highway and hedges, meaning go out into the world and compel the Gentiles to come to my dinner. You see there is room for them at the table as well; as a matter of fact there is a lot of room. In other words here, God is telling Jesus to go to the Jews first and then go to the Gentiles as well. Go tell everyone Jesus that I want to see them in my kingdom, and the room is bountiful.
But God is angry here because He has invited His chosen people to come to His dinner and they all made excuses after excuses. The parable only give three excuses but I would say that the man invited many and they all had excuses along the line of the ones given in the parable.
We have many excuses today, just like the excuses that were given back in Jesus day. I came across these excuses given by the insurance companies when I use doing research for this sermon; let me share them with you.
(Insurance excuses)
Well that is all in fun, but God doesn’t make light of those that have given excuses, you see in verse 24 it says: For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner. God is angry with those people and rightfully so. When the creator, our creator invites us to come to His dinner and we make excuses, how do you think He feels about us? Do we today make the same excuses as they did in there day? Lets take a look at their excuses and see.
Excuse number 1 was I have bought a piece of land and I want to go out to look at it.
Point 1: Don’t let the affairs of personal belongings keep you from the Lord.
In Sedalia you see this all of the time. It’s the first thing I think about when I think about people’s personal belongings keeping them from the Lord. On Friday afternoon and night you see car after car and truck after truck pulling their boats and campers down to the lake. The traffic is so bad in Sedalia that people that live there don’t want to venture out on Friday afternoon and night so they can avoid it. Now what has most of those people done. Now I don’t want you to think that I am judging these people or that I’m saying that having a boat or a camper is wrong. But I know from personal experience what most of those people are doing on Sunday morning. They live for it; they live to go out on the lake and ski or to fish. Again there is nothing wrong with that, but I do believe there is something wrong with that when you put it before God. You see it time and time again. How do you think that makes God feel when so many are taking the time that they should be worshiping God and using it as personal enjoyment time. A time for rest, relaxation, and recreation.
A lot of people that are doing this are not making a conscious choice not to go to Church on Sunday. Why do I say that, it’s because going to church is something that they are not even considering. Sometime in they’re past or in the past of someone in their family have made the choice not to accept what God has offered to them. You see they are so wrapped up in their personal belongings that they have forgotten about the God that created all those things.
The one in the parable that made this excuse was making the choice to serve what he had instead of the God that created it and it is the same thing that we do in our lives when we choose to hold on to our belongings more than we choose to hold onto God.
The 2nd excuse was this: I have bought 5 oxen and I want to go try them out. The oxen, I believe would’ve a means for him to make money and that brings me to the next point.
Point 2: Don’t let the affairs of business keep you away from the Lord.
Are people more concerned about money, than they are God? What is the thing most prevalent on the minds of most middle-aged workers today? Is it God, or is what am I going to do after retirement, am I going to have enough money to live on when I get old. You see the person in the parable that made this excuse is more worried about how he is going to make a living, than the creator that can supply all his needs. He is letting his chance go by and as a result has made the host angry and now he no place at the table.
While we do all have to make a living we must know that it is God that provide that living and we can’t neglect Him. It is the Christian thing to work and to supply the needs for our families and it is also the Christian things to do to supply the needs for our future when we are unable to work. It would be an unwise thing not to plan for what we are going to do after retirement. Need to do more here.
That brings me to the last excuse and it was that he had just married and for that reason he could not come.
Point 3: Don’t let the affairs of the affairs of the heart keep you from the Lord
This is the excuse that is closest to home, why, because it deals with family. You are generally closer to your family than any other people. This person here was using the excuse that he just took a wife could not come. In the commentaries that I read this they said was the excuse that had the most merit because in those days when you took a wife you could not be called into military service for a year. You were supposed to stay home with your wife and take care of her for the first year of the marriage. While they said that it was the excuse with the most merit, they said it still didn’t hold water, in a sense, because this invitation is such an important invitation. You see this person is letting his spouse keep him from the Lord and the host of the banquet even says that this person will ever eat from his table.
This is something that we see all too often in the world today. Where the wife won’t go to church because the husband refuses to go, or the husband refuses to go because the wife refuses to go. I know in my past I have been in this situation. I was the one not wanting to go to church and Maria was wanting to. I would hold her back from going to church. She would be asking me all the time, “Are we going to church this Sunday” and I would always give her a wishy washy answer to get her off my back until Sunday morning and she would be asking me again if we were going to go to church or not. I always wished that she would just go on without me. Many wives do go on to church without there husbands. Sometimes the wife brings the husband to the faith because of her faithfulness. The husband sees that his wife is changing and then he begins to wonder about those changes himself. Sometimes those changes take years and years, but sometimes those changes never happen. In my case as I look back on that now I’m glad that Maria wouldn’t go to church without me. I think if she did that I may never have started back to church again. So it does work both ways, your spouse can keep you from church by not going to church, but your spouse can encourage you to go to church and become a Christian.
Now what about the rest of the family? What happens when your family is not Christian and you want to become one or at least become part of a church. We see that many times in churches such as the one I just came from or at camp in the summer. Parents will send their kids to church or to summer camp to try to get a break away from their children for a while. What they don’t except many times is the their child will have the desire to become a Christian and then many time when you call on the parents to talk about their child becoming a Christian they refuse to let their child be baptized. That is one of the most frustrating things for me. I really don’t feel that it is the parents place to make that decision for their child. It is the decision of the one that wants to be baptized. While I don’t feel it is the decision of the parents, their decision must be abided by because their child is a minor and that’s what frustrates me so much.
Maria and I used to teach a class of 5th graders at Parkview Christian Church in their K.A.T. program. Maria still does teach that class, but one time in that class we had 3 of our students that wanted to be baptized and not one of them ended up being baptized. One wasn’t for the simple reason he was not mature enough yet to understand what it all meant. But the other two weren’t because their parents wouldn’t let them. One of them I don’t know where they are at, but the other one I do and now that boy doesn’t even go to church anywhere. It’s a shame that these kids families are keeping them from Christ.
And I wouldn’t be here today if I had listened to my family. Not that they had anything against me becoming a Christian, they had something against me giving up my job and going to school full-time so I could become a minister. The most prevalent thing on their mind was, how are you going to support your family. While that was a concern of mine as well I went ahead and did it. Even now I have some in my family that don’t want me to sell my house and move up here. They say if I sell my house I will have nothing. All your other cousins have nice houses and good jobs; boy I sure wish you could have that too. What they don’t seem to understand is that I value my relationship with Christ more than I value my house and my belonging. I want to be able to serve God in the way that I feel He has called me to do. So we can’t let the affair of the heart, the affairs of the family keep us from Christ.
Conclusion:
So you see that not one of the excuses where a good enough excuse. The man that is giving the banquet (God) is much more important than any excuse anyone could ever come up with. I think that the main point in the whole parable is that we can’t let everyday task and everyday things get in the way of accepting God’s invitation.
Have some of us here been making excuses for not accepting the invitation that God has given us through His Son Jesus Christ. You know God has taken all the excuse away. He did that when He sent His Son to die on the cross for us. Salvation is not something that we have to work for; salvation is a gift of grace, freely given by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you are not a Christian today then I urge you to come forward as we sing the invitation hymn. If you are Christian, is God calling you to some area of ministry? God has something for every Christian to do, there is a ministry that every Christian can do. I earge you if God calling you to an area of service, don’t make excuses, accept that call, God will bless you for it.
So if you have the desire to become a Christian today and make Jesus your Lord and Savior and you have decided that that excuses aren’t good enough anymore please come forward as we sing this hymn of invitation.
