Luke 14:16-24
6 Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many:
17 And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.
18 And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.
19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.
20 And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
21 So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. 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 hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.
22 And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.
23 And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
24 For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.
Introduction
This is our 23rd anniversary and I’m a very emotional person. I get excited at almost any anniversary that I’m involved in. When we have another anniversary, there are a lot of people who are amazed that I made it another year.
I sometimes feel like the preacher who had lost his leadership in the church. He knew that he ought to move and everybody knew it, but he wouldn’t do it. And finally some of the people came to him and they said, “Preacher, you’ve got to move. If you don’t leave we are going to fire you.” So he got busy and talked to some of his friends and got a recommendation and was called to another church. He announced his resignation to the congregation by saying, “When I came as pastor of this church, Jesus led me here and now Jesus is leading me away.” When he was through with the announcement, the congregation got up and sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”[1]
And we do have a friend in Jesus. A man went to the doctor and the doctor gave him six months to live. He didn’t pay his bill, and the doctor gave him another six months to live. I hope you give me a little bit longer to be here with you and to see what God can do.
The subject of the sermon today is “Strategy for the Future.” There is a story about a famous composer, Darius Milhaud, who had written more than 400 pieces of work, and someone asked him, “If you had to go to a desert island, which of your compositions would you take with you?” He replied, “I would take some blank paper. My favorite composition is always the one I will write tomorrow.”
When I think about our church, the thing that excites me the most is not the past, but the future. [2]This past week our staff had a planning retreat and I asked them two questions. First of all, I wanted to know their personal goals and ambitions in life—where they wanted to be ultimately and finally in life. I was interested in that because I want to help them to achieve that goal. If they are moving in the direction they want to go, and if they are achieving what they want to achieve, then they will be happier and more productive. I feel like it is a part of my responsibility as the leader of the staff to help those men become what they want to become, so I was interested in that.
But there was a second question I wanted them to deal with, and it was this: “If you had unlimited funds and unlimited personnel, what would you do in your area in the life of our church?” In short, I wanted to know their dreams, hopes, and aspirations for this church if there were no restraints and no limitations placed upon them. I wanted to know that because our dreams for the future have more effect on the present than our accomplishments in the past. Whatever we are expecting or hoping to do in the days ahead will always have more bearing upon who we are and what we do right now than anything that we may ever have done in the past.
There are some exciting days ahead for Tyler. We now have a population of 70,000 people. That’s an increase of 12,000 people over the past seven years. Tyler is now the largest city in East Texas and the 19th-largest city in all the state of Texas. I’m told that in the next 20 to 22 years that we can expect to have a population of between 95,000 and 105,000 people in our city. If that kind of growth is going to happen in our area, we must continue to ask ourselves, “What is the place of Green Acres Baptist Church in that tremendous growth?” The future is going to come whether we are ready for it or not. I intend that we be ready and I intend that we be dreaming and planning for the future so that when it comes, we’ll be ready to meet the people who come into our area and share the good news of Jesus Christ with them. I’ve been thinking about our strategy for the future, and of all places to find it, I found it in the passage of scripture that was read a few moments ago.
This is a parable told by our Lord in the book of Luke, chapter 14. Jesus told the story of a master, and that master represents God, who decided to give a feast. Jesus tells us that it was a great feast to which many were invited. Now that immediately helps us to understand that God is a big thinker. He was not interested in some piddly little affair where just a handful of people came together. When you are dealing with God, you are dealing with a big thinker.
The feast represents an opportunity for fellowship. An opportunity to come to a person’s home, to know them and to enjoy their company. In this context the feast would represent being in the presence of God, being in fellowship with God, and being a part of the people of God.
The day for the feast came and the master sent his servants to tell all of those who had been invited, “All things are now ready so come and enjoy the feast.” To the amazement of those servants who went to extend the invitation, those invited began to make excuses. One man said, “I’ve bought a yoke of oxen and I must try them out. I cannot come.” Another man said, “I’ve married a wife and I cannot come.” Another man said, “I’ve bought a piece of land and I’ve got to go see it. I cannot come.” You might have expected the master—having heard that everybody invited was making an excuse as to why they couldn’t and wouldn’t come—would have just decided to cancel the whole affair. After all, everybody had a reason why he couldn’t and wouldn’t be there. Or if the master had not canceled the whole affair, you might have expected him to make excuses for the excuses the other people had made. He might have said, “After all, these are busy times. People have got a lot of things to do and maybe it’s too much to ask them to come out on a week night to be a part of this banquet.”
Every time I go to a revival meeting and we hold the first service and only a handful of people gather to be a part of that revival service, the preacher leans over and makes excuses for his people’s excuses. He tells me all the things that are going on in the community that week, like a Chamber of Commerce meeting or a band concert, this or that, and all he is doing is making excuses for the excuses they’ve already made for not being there. We might well have expected the master in this parable to either cancel the whole affair or to excuse his people. But not this master. He was determined that he was going to have the banquet and he was determined that there were going to be some people there.
He said to those servants, “I want you to go out into the streets and the lanes of the city. I want you to go quickly and I want you to find the poor, the halt, the blind, and the lame people who would not ordinarily be invited to an affair like this, and I want you to tell them to come and be a part of this banquet.” The servants went, and some of the people accepted the invitation, but still there were empty seats at the banquet. The servants said to the master, “We have done as you have commanded, and yet there is room.” Well the master might have said, “We have given it two good shots. We really have tried and I think that is enough. We’ll just be satisfied with a half-full or half-empty house.” But not this master. He said to those servants, “I want you to go [this is the third time he is saying this] into the highways and into the hedges and I want you to compel [and that word compel means “to urge”] people to come, that my house may be filled.”
I want you to underscore in your minds and in your Bible that phrase, “That my house may be filled,” for that is the goal of our church—to fill every seat in the house every time we come together to worship. When we fill all the seats in the house, then we intend to enlarge the house and fill those seats. We are to keep on going and reaching, inviting, and bringing people until we have reached every lost person we can for the kingdom of God.
The master said to those servants, “You are to urge them to come,” because he knew that in that third instance, there would be people who did not expect to be invited. There would be people who would have felt unwelcomed, unworthy, and unwanted at the banquet. The servants would have to really bear down and impress these people that they were in fact welcomed, wanted, and worthy to come and be a part of this wonderful occasion in the master’s house.
[3]You will find those two words, “go and compel,” in our strategy for the future. Our goal has always been to build the greatest witness for Christ in this whole area. That was the goal I shared with you several years ago when I became your pastor, and we have not altered from that goal one bit. We are still out to do that. And the strategy for building the greatest witness for Christ in all of this area is that we shall go into the highways, hedges, streets, and lanes and we shall compel people to come. We shall let everyone know that they are wanted, welcomed, and worthy to be a part of the kingdom of God. With that in mind, I want you to look at four aspects of our strategy.
1. Our strategy is to go quickly. As we go to compel people, we are to go quickly. That word quickly that he used on the second occasion when he commanded his servants to go carries with it the idea of urgency. There is to be an urgency about our inviting people to come and be a part of the kingdom of God. Did you know that there are 135,000 more lost people in the world today than there were yesterday? Do you know that if you lined up all the lost people in this world 30 inches apart that they would encircle the globe not one time, not two times, not three times, but 30 times? Did you know that that line is growing at a rate of 25 miles a day? If it is our mission and our purpose to win the world to Jesus Christ, it will never be easier than it was yesterday, and tomorrow it will never be easier than it will be today. All of that says to me that if we are going to reach our world for Christ, there needs to be in our hearts and minds a new sense of urgency in going and compelling people to come and be a part of the kingdom of God. We had better do it today, and we had better get at it. Jesus said something like that when he said, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4).
I was impressed last summer while visiting Israel at how quickly a day comes to an end and the night comes. We were standing on the Mount of Olives, looking out across old Jerusalem, and I saw the sun beginning to set on that old city. I reached down and unsnapped my camera and tried to focus it, and I tell you before I could ever get it focused, the sun was down, the day was over, and night was upon us. I’ve never seen the sun set that quickly in all of my life. Maybe Jesus had that in mind when he said that we must work while it is day.
Billy Sunday said, “We need to quit fiddling around with religion and get on to winning this old world with Jesus Christ.” Maybe I owe our church an apology because I have not had enough sense of urgency in doing this. In the days ahead, the goal for outreach is going to be 100 people every Wednesday night involved in outreach. I’m going to ask our deacons and their wives to be examples and to give leadership in this kind of outreach and evangelism in our community.
Our deacons are the finest group of men I’ve ever worked with in my life. But they aren’t doing enough for Jesus. They aren’t giving the leadership and the example they ought to give in outreach in this church. And it is not their fault—it is my fault, because I’ve not asked it of them. Everything I have asked them to do in the name of Christ, they have responded with a wholehearted response to do. And I have never before asked them to give leadership and example in outreach like I intend to ask them to do in the days ahead. Now when our Sunday school teachers and our outreach directors join with our deacons and their wives in outreach and in visitation, we’re going to see people won to Christ and enlisted in the kingdom of God like you have never ever seen before. We are going to go quickly with a sense of urgency to invite people into the kingdom of God.
2. Our strategy is to go indiscriminately. Second, we are going to go indiscriminately. That’s the whole point of this parable. Jesus was saying that everybody is welcomed, wanted, and worthy to be a part of the kingdom of God. He sent out the invitation to a few select people to begin with. They turned him down, so he told his servants to go in the streets and the lanes to invite more, and some of those invited came. Then he told his servants to go out into the highways and into the hedges and to tell everyone to come. The whole truth of the parable is that everyone is welcome, everyone is worthy, and everyone is wanted in the kingdom of God. No one is excluded.
There are some people in our world today who feel like they are unwelcomed, unwanted, and unworthy to be a part of the kingdom of God and a part of the church. It is because they’ve got some false ideas of what the church is and who the people of God are. They think that the church is a place for good people to go. But we realize that the church is a place for sinners to go. If those who are invited are sinners whose life is not what it ought to be, and if they fail to measure up to their highest ideals and standards, they will feel right at home among this crowd. We need to help them to know that they are wanted, welcomed and worthy.
Some of the greatest criticism Jesus received was for the fact that he associated with sinners. But no finer compliments could have been paid to Jesus and no finer compliment could be paid to anyone (including the preacher) than the fact that he is a friend of sinners and that he is not ashamed to be seen with them or associate with them or be called their friend. Part of our strategy is to go to all men everywhere and say, “God wants you. God loves you, and so do we.”
[4]When Lyndon Johnson was president of the United States, they tell me that the doormat at his ranch in Johnson City had these words on it: “All the world is welcomed here.” And that’s the way it ought to be in the church. We are going to go quickly, we are going to go indiscriminately, and we are going to go persistently.
3. Our strategy is to go persistently. You notice in the parable that when the servants went out and were met with excuses, they didn’t quit. They came back and told the master and he sent them out the second time. Then they came back with only some people making a response, but the servants didn’t quit. He sent them out a third time and he kept sending them out until the house was filled to capacity. That teaches me that we who are inviting people into the kingdom of God must be ready and willing to go again and again and again to do the work of God.
It’s hard work winning people to Christ. We have to be ready for it. My friend Fritz Smith said that the only place that success ever comes before work is in the dictionary. If we expect to win people to Christ we’ve got to work hard. We’ve got to go again and again and again. We have to have a sense of determination. We must not be discouraged when some people make excuses, and we must not be disheartened when some people are not ready and willing to accept the invitation. We must not lose heart when they seemingly have lost interest in the kingdom of God. In many instances, the difference between success and failure is the persistency of the person who is involved.[5]
A survey of insurance salesmen by the Nation’s Business magazine revealed that 75 percent of insurance salesmen make one call and quit. Fifteen percent make two calls and quit. Seven percent make three calls and quit. Three percent make four calls. And those three percent sell ninety percent of the insurance. They don’t give up. They don’t quit.
Did you know that Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin ran for the position nine times before he was ever elected? Then he became one of the most powerful and influential men in all of the world, and part of the reason is that he kept on trying again and again. We do not intend to give up in our efforts to reach our community and our world for Jesus Christ. We are going quickly and we are going indiscriminately and we are going repeatedly to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
4. Our strategy is to go enthusiastically. And finally, we are going to go excitedly and enthusiastically. Somebody asked Mark Twain the secret of his success and he said, “I was born excited.” When I think about reaching people for Christ, when I think about the opportunity afforded them to come and be a part of the kingdom of God, to sit down in fellowship with the heavenly Father and to spend eternity with him, I get excited about God and his work.
And I’m saying to you that we need to have some excitement and enthusiasm. We are under no illusion. We know that not everyone will accept the invitation when we extend it to them. But whether they accept the invitation or not is between that person and God. Whether we extend the invitation or not is between us and God. If they reject the invitation, they must answer to him. If we fail to issue the invitation we must answer to him. He has commissioned us to go into the streets and the lanes of the cities, into the highways and the hedges of the country, and we are to urge people to come and be a part of the great feast of God so they can fellowship with him. That is our goal and our strategy and we intend to be everlastingly at it until Jesus comes again. And what do we say when we go?
Jesus said to go and tell them, “Come, all things are ready!” It is not our responsibility to prepare the meal. That has been done. It is not our responsibility to set the table. That has been done. It is not our responsibility to write the invitation. That has been done. It is our responsibility to deliver it and to say to the world, “All things are ready. Salvation is complete. God has made everything as it ought to be. Come now and share in it. Participate in it, and be a part of it.” If we’ll do that, then God will bless us like we have never been blessed before.
Jesus said on one occasion, “Come unto me, all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He said through John in the book of Revelation, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). He said to the religious people, “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40). He also said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).
And even today in this service, the Savior comes to speak to your heart to say, “Come, be a part of my family. Be a part of my kingdom. Share in the wonder and the joy and the blessings of salvation now and throughout all eternity.” And I believe that in this service there are some who are willing to answer that call, accept the invitation, and become a part of the fellowship of God’s people.
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