Luke 14:1, 7-14 | Parables in Practice

Listen to this week’s sermon, Parables In Practice preached by Pastor Kenneth Dyches from Luke 14:1, 7-14.

Transcript

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 0:06

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com. Stand and join with me as we pray together a prayer of illumination and the reading of God's Word. Prayer of Illumination, read with me. Pray with me. God our Father, by your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and our minds to your word and lead us into your truth for the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. If you would remain standing if you were able for the reading of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14, verses 1 and 7 through 24. One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. Now he told a parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him. And he who invited you both will come and say to you, Give your place to this person. And then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, Friend, move up higher. Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. He said also to the man who had invited him, When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters, or your relatives, or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But Jesus said to him, A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, Come, for everything is now ready. But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, I bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. And the servant said, Sir, what you have what you commanded has been done, and still there is room. And the master said to the servant, Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

Scarcity Mindset Versus God’s Kingdom

The Scarcity Of Honor

Mr Rogers And Practicing Humility

The Scarcity Of Blessing

Seeing Disability And Making Room

Abundant Excuses And Disordered Loves

What To Surrender And Church Planting

Come To Jesus’ Table

Kenneth Dyches 3:25

Good morning, New City. So I want you to imagine for a moment that you've been invited to a dinner banquet. And it's your boss who invited you, not just your boss, but really your CEO of the company who's hosting it. And he's invited every all of the high-ups in the company as well as the whole company. He's also invited some other uh organizations and philanthropists. Uh, there's some notable people there. Maybe there's even one or two celebrities, right? So you you come to the dinner and people are coming up in nice cars, uh, people are dressed well, uh, they're mingling and socializing with one another. Everybody wants to get a chance to talk to the CEO, talk to the boss, get a chance to uh let their face and name be known, uh, hopefully get that promotion that they want. Uh for the couple celebrities that are there, people are trying to get close to them, to take selfies, either from like a distance, you know, 20 feet away, or just like brave enough to come up and talk to them. Uh and so it's it's a haul to do, right? But in the midst of all of that, somebody walks in. Uh, this person uh is a little awkward. Uh they're not dressed like everybody else. They are a little swollen, they're clearly uncomfortable. Something's a little bit off with this person. Uh, they don't fit in. Uh and so everyone, you know, they're kind of giving them the side eye. They're like, they're aware of them, but they're not sure what to do with this man. Uh, and so the night goes on, uh, and the host comes up uh to give a short speech, right? It's polished, it's funny, people laugh at his jokes. Uh, but as he's giving it, he pauses and he notices the man in the middle of the room. And he cranes his neck and and to see who he is and what he's doing, why he's caused a little bit of a fuss. And the room goes quiet. In the middle of his speech, he's paused to look at this man. And everybody in that moment, uh, nobody moves. Uh, everybody knows that it's not gonna benefit me to move towards this man uh until I see someone else do that, right? I'm not gonna climb the social ladder by talking to him. If I do talk to him, I might kind of be burdened uh by whatever his needs are. I might actually be stuck helping him. And what if I don't get to talk to the CEO or take a selfie with that celebrity? But the host comes off the podium, he walks over to the man, he sees that the man's legs are shaking, and so he grabs a chair for him and seats him at the table, uh, right actually where the host uh will be sitting. Uh and he grabs him a meal before the dinner. It's actually plated. He goes out and he grabs it, brings it to him, gives him a bottle of water before finally coming up and finishing uh his polished speech in front of everybody on the podium. At the at that party, uh it didn't earn points for people uh to go and minister to that man, uh it didn't increase their influence, it might have cost them social capital. So they stayed silent, right? They played it safe, they protected their position. But then their host sees, cares for, and restores that man. And just like that, the entire value system of the room is exposed because while they're securing their seat, protecting their image, and managing their status, they completely missed the person right in front of them. Why? Because of a culture of scarcity and self-protection. The key idea in the social science of economics is the concept of scarcity, the fundamental problem that resources are limited while human wants are unlimited. And so our hearts tainted by sin respond in self-protection. The economics of a world tainted by sin is defined by scarcity. It's that pit in the center of our stomach, right, that tells us there's not enough for everyone. And scarcity leads sinful hearts to self-protection. Give you a couple examples of this. There's time scarcity. It sounds like I just don't have time for that. It looks like constantly rushing over booking and multitasking, prioritizing productivity over people. Then there's money scarcity, right? It sounds like I need to hold on to what I have. And it looks like fear of giving, even when we're able, anxiety about the future despite the stability that we have, and constant comparison of income, lifestyle, or security. And then there's relational or emotional scarcity, right? It sounds like I have to protect my circle or I just don't have anything left to give. It can look like hesitating to include outsiders, investing only in people who feel easy or beneficial, or withdrawing instead of engaging when life gets too hard. Scarcity leads sinful hearts to self-protection. However, in the economics of God's kingdom, scarcity doesn't exist. God knows all things, sees all things, owns all things. He creates all things from nothing. And this leads a good God to humble himself and self-giving to a sinful people. And he calls those same people made in his image to humility and self-giving as well. In God's kingdom, we can respond to scarcity with humility and self-giving. And that's what we're talking about here today. In God's kingdom, we can respond to scarcity with humility and self-giving. Go ahead and look at the text with me. We're going to start in Luke chapter 14, verse 1. Now, as we come to the passage, uh we see that Jesus is at a table. He's at a feast. Uh and it's not uncommon to find Jesus at a table in Luke's gospel. Uh he's almost always coming from, going to, or at a table with somebody in the gospel account. Uh, that can be Pharisees, tax collectors, sinners, the outcasts, his disciples, and the lost. Right? He's inviting all to the table, and he's invited to their table. So there's something important there. But we look at uh chapter 14, verse 1, and it says, one Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. So notice that this is on the Sabbath day. Uh Jesus says at one point, uh, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It looks forward to the rest and the wholeness that we will receive in the new heavens and new earth when all things are made new. And so he's been disputing with them about can I heal on the Sabbath? Right. And so he says that to this room, there's actually, he's at the feast uh of that a Pharisee is throwing, right? He's a ruler of the Pharisee. And so probably a lot of other religious leaders there, a lot of people of import and influence. And in the midst of all of that, there's a man, as we continue reading the next several verses, with dropsy, right? So he would have been swollen, right? He he would have been uncomfortable looking. People probably would have been avoiding him, right? And so notice what Jesus notices. Uh, he then goes on to notice this man and to heal him on the spot in the moment. While the Pharisees are watching him closely, asking, is this man one of us? Is he going to further our status? Are we going to benefit from him being here as the guest of honor? Jesus is noticing the humble man, right, who needs help among them. And so we move forward in the passage at uh and go ahead with me and look at verse seven, which says, now he. Oh, sorry, excuse me. Yeah, look with me at verse seven. Now he told a parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they chose the places of honor. So again, notice what Jesus is noticing, right? They're watching him, but he sees their hearts. Uh, he sees their lack of humility. I wonder uh if we were conscious all the time of what Jesus is noticing in our lives, right? When we're doom scrolling on social media, when we're posting our own things on social media, uh and all the things that we do when we when we come to church, who do we talk to? Uh, when we're going about our life at the grocery store, when we're around our kids and in our neighborhoods, uh, if we were keeping in mind what Jesus is noticing, what would we do differently? And the context of what's going on here in an honor and shame culture, uh, the places of honor at a banquet reveal one's social status and influence, things that we are often subconsciously trying to seek out and get for ourselves. And so it would be important for the people at the feast. This is an opportunity for them vocationally, right, uh, to move, to move up in their station. This is an opportunity to be near those who have much, near those who can decide their fate, right? Where they're at in society, what kind of honor they have, who can they they can be friends with. So this would have been important for those there uh to grab the seats of honor. But that's operating from the lie of scarcity, which says if someone else gets noticed, then there's less for me. If I'm not being seen, then I must not matter. And if I have if I have to position, I have to position myself, or I will get overlooked. But Jesus flips the script. Look with me at verse 11. For everyone who exalts himself, he says, will be humbled. And he who humbles himself will be exalted. Uh that word humbles himself means to cause to be at a lower point. And what's wonderful about the God that we know and love, the God of the scriptures, is it says in Philippians 2, the Son of God was found in human form. God humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. God, who owns all things, came to live and dwell with sinners in humility, counting their salvation more important than even his own life, that he could die on a cross for their sins, that they might be forgiven and have an opportunity to become children of God, who could receive all that they needed at the table of God in Jesus Christ. And that's what Matthew 18 tells us when Jesus invites us to humble ourselves like a child. And his disciple Peter later tells us in 1 Peter that as we humble ourselves, we can cast our anxieties, our needs, our wants on him, because he cares for us and he will exalt us at the proper time. We don't need to exalt ourselves. We don't need to look out for ourselves or station ourselves or be noticed. God sees and notices his children and he longs for them to come to them and receive what they need. See, God says if you humble yourself and someone else gets noticed, you are noticed by God. If you humble yourself and are not seen, God sees and delights in you. And in the new heavens and new earth, uh, everyone will one day know it. If you humble yourself and don't position yourself, God will position and provide for you at the right time. Children of God, there's no scarcity or power or position or platform or people to love you. There's no lack of those things in the kingdom of God. Yet if you truly want these things, we must be willing to lose them. Mr. Rogers, if you're a millennial, you're probably familiar with that show. You probably grew up watching it. Um He's actually a local legend, right? He went to Rollins College uh here in Orlando. Uh and his show was known uh for the degree of intention that he put uh into loving his audience well. It wasn't flashy, he wasn't just trying to get eyeballs, he was truly trying to love and let the children who are watching know uh that they were important, right? That they were cared for. And this really came out one day uh as his show was gaining in popularity. He uh the broadcasting company uh hosted the meet and greet. And they expected maybe in the hundreds of people to show up. Uh but that day in the morning, they looked outside and there were thousands and upon thousands of people lined up with their children to meet Mr. Rogers. Uh and they were there because their kids knew, right, Mr. Rogers would see them. He cared about them, he thought they were important. And it took until late in the day, right, towards the very end of the day, before they had to send people home finally because uh they still weren't through the crowds. And it was because Mr. Rogers stopped, knelt down, learned the child the name of every child, and held a conversation with them. He humbled himself before the lowly and bestowed honor on them. A good barometer in how we're doing with this is by asking ourselves the question: how do you use social media? What does your feed look like? Another question is, how do you treat others who you have nothing to gain from? Right? It could be people at the store, people in your neighborhood, people you won't see again. And a third question is, what does your prayer life look like? C.S. Lewis says, true humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less. And true humility draws us to pray and set our minds on God in the midst of all that we go through in this life. And it brings us to our knees because we know we are finite. We know that we need his help to have humility and move towards others. And we know our hearts are disordered. We're sinners in desperate need of honor and connection that only God through Jesus Christ can bring us. And that leads me to my second point. So in the first one, we talked about the scarcity of honor, and then the second one, we're looking at the scarcity of blessing. Look with me at Luke chapter 14, verse 12. He said also to the man who had invited him, When you give a dinner at a banquet, do not invite your friends and your brothers and your relatives or your rich neighbors. Hold the phone. So I want to have a smash tournament at my house, right? I want to uh have a pool party at my house, I want to host a Super Bowl party, and you're telling me I shouldn't invite my family or my friends or my boss. Okay, let's translate this for a moment because that's a little insane. When you form a new city community or circle, right, when you're throwing a party at your house, or when you're just thinking through your next several weekends, who you want to have over, who you want to get together with, don't think only of your besties, of the social insiders of the fun crowd, or those that you might benefit from. He's not saying don't hang out with these people at all, but his stark contrast is meant to bring out the question: how often are your decisions about community, who you invite to your table, about who is most life-giving, beneficial, easy, and most similar to yourself. See, I think this way, we all think this way because we feel the scarcity of resources, time, and relational capital. If you're single, right, you likely have people you work with, you have people at school, you have people here at church. Your social circles can be really big, but you only have so much time for each one. And then as you get married, you're spending more time with your spouse. You want to start spending more time with other couples, and you begin to feel the constraint on your time and realize you only have so much relational and emotional capital to give. And then once you have kids, man, you gotta just delete half your phone. Like you just don't have time for anybody not in your social circles, especially as they have sports and et cetera, and so on. You feel the strain, right? Somebody wants to get together and be like, Yeah, let's book it for five months from now. You laugh because you know. See, we we feel the need to be repaid. I feel the need with mutually beneficial friendships. And those are good. God's not saying don't have those, but he's saying there are those who don't have. Are you moving towards them? Look with me at verse 13. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. So there's an opportunity right here. He's inviting us to give a feast, right? There's something good there, which we'll come to in a moment. But let's look at that list. If you've engaged the poor, you know that you cannot meet all of their needs, that their needs can be endless. If you've ever engaged the crippled, you know that they live life at a different pace, a slower pace. If you've ever engaged the mentally disabled, you know how uncomfortable certain social situations can be. If you've ever engaged the spiritually lost, those who don't believe what we what we believe, you know how quickly you can lose things in common and how awkward those conversations can get. If you've engaged with somebody of a different culture or stage of life, uh, you know how difficult it can be to form deep and lasting friendships. See, to engage those who are in need, those who are different, who are outcasts, who aren't in our normal circles is costly. We're all made in the image of God, though. And those who have greater need or different needs than our own uniquely reflect God and offer us in Jesus things that we need. That's why Jesus in Matthew 25 says that when we go out of our way to bless those who are in greater need, we are blessing Jesus Himself. We can flip the script by prioritizing the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and the lost. Look with me at verse 14. Jesus says, And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. See, Jesus flips the script again. The word blessed here means truly fortunate or happy. That's that's backwards. To be truly fortunate or happy, but to be giving of ourselves that way, sacrificially, it doesn't really make sense. But he's striking against the quid pro quo way of the world that's based on reciprocity. Essentially, I serve others because it serves me, or I bless others so that I can receive blessing in return from them. But Jesus says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and justice, for they shall be satisfied. Do you know that you need mercy? Do you identify? Do you remember that you were once spiritually lost? That you are once spiritually crippled. Do you recognize the deep needs that you have here and now that can only truly be met in Jesus Christ, who is inviting you to his own table to receive that? See, when we come to Jesus regularly in confession and repentance on our knees in prayer, and we ask for his mercy and grace for ourselves, when we ask him, and we can ask him to give us a humble heart, he will do it. Then in your great joy and thankfulness, you will turn to your neighbor. Isaiah 25, 6 gives us a vision of what will be in the new heavens and new earth. He says, On this mountain, Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. We can begin to participate in that now as we invite people to our table. And the reality is there are people around us that we don't see. One in three households have at least one family member with disability. One in four adults experience disability. One in six children experience disability. Disability. So this is important to us. We often don't see them, the people who are in need. In our own neighborhoods, in our own church. Look at the number of people in this church. If these statistics are true, how many are there in this church who we have opportunities to invite to our table that we haven't? One in two families have left their church because their child with disabilities was not welcomed. Now we are a welcoming church, we're hospitable. But what does it say about the church at large? There are people who statistically are leaving this church because they are not seen. Because they haven't been invited to our table. Are the people coming into my own home? Are the people sitting with us here in these chairs around us partaking of this meal that we'll partake of together? Are they the people who are poor, lame, crippled, and blind? Do the mentally or physically disabled have a place here? What about the poor and the oppressed? What about the lost? Do we give this feast for them? One simple way we can do this is by the common rhythm practice of feasting together. And when we feast at our own tables, when we invite people, we can just be sure to include people who are new to the church, right? Your next door neighbors, especially those who might be considered outcasts. And sometimes it's just being present enough to look around us in wherever we live, work and play, and asking ourselves, who is Jesus wanting to invite to his table? And how can I be part of that? And it is sacrificial. Like I can tell you, we we work hard to have people in our home, and it's insanely difficult. It requires planning ahead. Uh, it requires putting in your schedule, it requires being present so as to even meet your neighbors. Sometimes it's hard to even just meet those guys. So you wonder what they do. And there are many here, right? There are many of us who have been hospitable, who have loaned, offered services, blessed others, whose sacrifices have not been repaid. Jesus sees you. He sees what you have done to invite people to his table, and he will reward it. Note too that Jesus ultimately is not all dependent on us. He's inviting us to participate in his good work of inviting all these people to partake of the rich food at his table. But he's the one who will honor, bless, satisfy, and make all people whole. He just invites us to be part of that process. That brings me to my third point. So we've seen scarcity of honor, scarcity of blessing, and now we see an abundance of excuses. Look with me at Luke 14, verse 15. When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. I imagine Jesus like pausing and kind of like looking over at him, like, what? And then going on and saying, Okay, let's draw this out. I don't know if you understand. Look with me at verse 16 and 17. But he said to him, A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, Come, for everything is now ready. Now, uh, it's important to know that because the servant is going out and inviting people because the dinner's ready, uh, likely uh they will have already received and responded yes to an RSVP. So these people giving excuses are actually people who said, Yes, I'll be there. Um, and so notice what they say. There's actually uh an increase uh in dishonor in each one. The first said to him, I've bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. Right? So this invitation went out months in advance. Uh, and he's probably should have looked at this field before he bought it, right? Uh but he's like, Okay, but I I just bought it, it's really important. I need to go see it. Which can you please have me excused? Another said, I have both bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine him then. Please see me excused. So he's already on his way, right? This this servant had to go track this guy down on his way to the oxen, and he's asking to be excused, but he already presumptively went to go see them. And then the third said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. Again, this likely is a wedding feast that this man is hosting, that the master is hosting. And this guy also would have scheduled his wedding feast way out in advance. And notice that he's already married this woman. But coming to this feast would mean that he'd have to be apart from her, right? And I'm sure he wants to be with her and love her and protect her. And so he says, even though he can come, he says, Oh, I cannot come, see me excused. These are legitimate concerns, but they're escalating in insult. See, double invitations were customary among the upper class when they were entertaining, and guests who invited an invitation were actually honor bound to attend when they were informed that the meal was ready. And imagine this, it basically would have been like me going out and uh hiring a Michelin star chef to come uh to a venue that I had booked, uh, that I had set up. You know, I'd spent tons and tons of money uh on a wedding. You know, some people do that, you can't really afford it, right? But you do it anyway. And uh then all of the people I had invited, I'm standing, I'm standing alone there, right, at the venue, wanting to celebrate maybe the birth, I mean the marriage of my daughter, and no one shows up. All these people who had said yes, who I thought were part of my my family, right? My my friends, the closest people I know and love. I had spent so much money. I was looking forward to this. And they have said, no, I have other things to do. See, each of them uh were looking for good life and satisfaction and worldly security, work, and family, but not in the master, not in God. Their loves were disordered by scarcity, and so their loves became idols. So they missed out on the true satisfaction and the table of the one who invited them. See, in order to find true satisfaction in Jesus Christ, in order to experience the joy and delight that God offers us even here and now, we need to humble ourselves to ask what in our lives is getting in the way of what God truly has for us. Sometimes it's lies. Like, you know, if if I if I don't give everything that I have to my job and to work, I might lose my job. I or if if I uh if I don't give everything I have to the friends that I love the most who are immediately around me, then they're gonna find other friends. Whatever the case may be, scarcity mindsets, right, they draw us to elevate things that were to the place where only God should be. See, Alexander the Great was probably the best at uh going out and getting what he wanted. Uh, and so he conquered more land than any before him. He was a brilliant tactician, he was a brave leader of armies, a ruthless enemy, an intelligent ruler. He was able to win some incredibly impressive battles uh against many different nations. Jerusalem actually opened the gates for him to show him a prophecy uh from the book of Daniel that he would conquer. Yet, on his return journey, he suddenly died. All of that, and the world was shocked that such an undefeatable conqueror could vanish so quickly. Right if we if our lives are required of us tomorrow, will when we get to the wedding feast, will Jesus say, Move up, come sit next to me? What will he look at our time and say? Will he say, You humbled yourself and submitted it all to me for the sake of those that I love? What are you striving after and what do you need to surrender? Sometimes we need to surrender from being the third person of the Trinity, right? We're supposed to be listening to God through his spirit for his will for our lives, but so often we, I'm guilty of this for sure, we set our own schedules. Uh, we have our Google calendars. Uh, we say yes or no to people based on what fits in our Google calendar, what our priorities are. But how often when we adjust those calendars, are we asking the Spirit who we should move towards, what he has for us, what he is doing in and through us. This is one of the reasons why uh we want to church plant and why it's important for churches to plant churches. I don't know if you know this, but um, in the average established church, you only see one conversion for every 106 members. There's a lot of new people moving to Orlando. It's a lot of people who've left the church that don't ever want to come back. A lot of people who don't know Jesus, who are spiritually blind and lost, and Jesus wants to invite to his table. But the out in church plants, that number is actually for every six members, you have one conversion, right? We want to go out and reach the lost. If we want to move towards those who don't yet know Jesus, we have to move outside of our circles, outside of what is comfortable. We have to be willing to pray and ask the Lord, what do you have for me? And that might not be church planting. Okay, I'm not trying to recruit all of you at once. But wherever you live, work and play, he is inviting you to move towards people around you that you don't yet see. Ask him who those people are. In these parables, we encounter the God who invites us to his table. See, the Pharisees were offended because Jesus gave his attention to the humble one among them against their rules and regulations. In so doing, he declared the needs of his people more important. He sees that your needs are important. Jesus was also called a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. See, he sees and knows your sin, and he calls and invites you to the table, nonetheless, so that we can do the same with others, to those who are messy, because we're messy. To come to his table requires loss, willingness to lose friendships, social media followers, comfort, worldly security and happiness, but to find it all in Jesus. And yet in Matthew 19, Jesus says, Everyone who has left all of these things, or houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. And he adds, but many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. See, we as sinners are afraid to be humble because humility requires loss. And we believe the lie of scarcity, that at the end of the day we are alone to take care of ourselves. Yet God humbled himself and he emptied all of heaven to die on a cross for sinners who rejected him, so that we might have the opportunity to respond to his invitation here and now, to receive from his table, to know that it is secure for us, to participate in his good and incredible work of inviting others to that table. And this is from a God who is always available and always taking care of us. So come to Jesus' table and then ask, who is he inviting you to invite to yours? Go ahead and pray with me. Heavenly Father, we we need your spirit to form our hearts, to be humble, to receive from your table in faith, to desire, to lay down our lives, our priorities, our work, our relationships for the sake of those that you love, for the sake of the lost, for the sake of the least of these. Lord, we want to move towards these, but often we don't even know how. We don't know where to begin. But we trust that your spirit can transform our hearts, that can give us a heart like yours, that can move us in love towards those around us. And that as we take steps of faith to do that, Lord, we ask that you would provide, provide what we need to do that, provide for our tables, provide that we can move towards one another in humility and in love. Open our eyes to what you're doing around us, that we can rejoice in the new heavens and new earth and all those that we will see around us, that we were, that we partook in inviting to that table to feast and to be satisfied in your presence. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.