Hi there,
I am working on the next update on the ministry in Botswana, but in the meantime, I thought I would post a sermon I preached ten years ago today. I was reminded today of it and enjoyed re-reading it, and thought perhaps someone else may find it encouraging. [At the time that I gave the sermon, I thought I would be moving to Botswana in about 3 months (in February 2008), but the tragic rollover accident in early February 2008 that broke my neck delayed my moving to Botswana until 2010]. Enjoy!
November 25, 2007
"Invitation to the King's Table"
Good morning! I’ve been attending Messiah 6 years now, and served the last two years as a youth intern. I am getting ready to move to Botswana as a Youth for Christ missionary. At a YFC training this summer, the YFC USA president told us the true story of how his Dad, Sam Wolgemuth, also in YFC, years ago had been a bit discouraged because when he’d spoken to a large auditorium full of youth in India and given the invitation to accept Christ, only one young Indian came forward. The young man explained that he was moved by how much he could tell that Sam loved Christ, and he wanted that…Little did Sam Wolgemuth know at the time that this young man, Ravi Zacharias, would go on to become an internationally renowned Christian author, speaker, and apologist— Little did Sam know that he’d invited someone into the Kingdom of God who would go on to invite thousands upon thousands more!
In the Gospel reading today, we heard a similar story—Andrew invited his brother Simon and brought him to Jesus. Little did Andrew know at the time that he’d just invited someone into the Kingdom of God who also would go on to invite thousands upon thousands more.
Well, today is Christ the King Sunday, where we celebrate the reign of Christ and His kingdom. Just as Andrew invited Simon Peter, we are to invite others to meet the King and enter into His kingdom. In the parable of the great banquet, in which Jesus described the kingdom of God, servants were sent out to invite people to come eat at the master’s table. That is symbolic of how Christ the King sends us out to invite others to eat in His Kingdom. To “Eat in the kingdom of God”=common metaphor for salvation…heaven”. In the parable, he invited all who would come, and sent the servants to go to the highways and hedges to invite even those on the margins of society…outcasts, beggars, the blind, the lame, the crippled—those in no position to return hospitality. Entrance to the kingdom banquet was not based on people’s merit or what they could do, but just on accepting the free invitation. This symbolizes how we enter the Kingdom of God still today—by accepting the King (Christ’s) grace, not by our works or effort.
Like the banquet, Christ the King’s invitation goes out to all, regardless of social status or race, for God shows no partiality-- Anyone who chooses to repent and trust in Christ’s sacrificial death on their behalf, is welcomed to intimate fellowship with the King of Kings. Jesus said in Rev 3:20—“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me,” and John 1:12 states, “To all who received Him, who believed in His name, he gave the power to become children of God.”
Tucked away in 2 Samuel 9 is an amazing story in which I believe King David foreshadows the grace and mercy of Christ the King towards those who trust in Him and become God’s children:
In those days, when a king took over the throne, all the relatives of the previous king and members of his court were killed. In David’s case, this meant the family of Saul. Apparently one grandson of Saul, Mephibosheth (try saying that one 5 times fast ) had slipped through the cracks and was still alive. David invited Mephibosheth to be brought to him. By all normal counts, Mephibosheth deserved death for being part of Saul’s family. He couldn’t do much to earn the King’s favor such as fight courageously, for Mephibosheth was lame in both feet. This made him an outcast in that society. When he came before King David, he fell on his face in homage to the King…Instead of sentencing him to death like the rest of his family, King David desired to freely show him mercy and grace because of his covenant loyalty to Mephibosheth’s father Jonathan. And so Mephibosheth was given more than he could have ever imagined—not just life itself, but all the land of his grandfather Saul, and an invitation to eat with the King at his table forever! Mephibosheth laid at the king’s feet again in homage, saying “What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?” For Mephibosheth did nothing to earn those blessings and that place at the King’s table; it was just the unmerited favor of the King.
The kindness that King David showed was described as “God’s kindness” in v3, and what a beautiful foreshadowing it was of Christ the King’s kindness and grace to us—by all counts, we deserved death because of our sin, and we can’t earn his favor or salvation by what we do, but if we choose to repent and lay our lives before him in worship, because of his covenant loyalty to us, Christ the King gives us, instead of death and separation from Him, eternal life and fellowship with Him at his table in his Kingdom…And as Mephibosheth was shown unmerited favor because he was Jonathan’s son; likewise, we are shown even greater favor because we have become sons and daughters of God through our faith in Christ and His atoning work. Ron Sider writes: “Central to any biblical understanding of the kingdom is that we enter it by sheer grace and forgiveness. We enter not by good deeds, but only as we repent and accept God’s forgiveness. The kingdom comes as a gift” (57), but that free fellowship with the King came at the cost of His life on the cross. What grace, what love for each of us, even the outcasts, the lame, the marginalized, that Christ the King died to enable us to enter into close fellowship with Himself.
Now, it is interesting to note that it was mentioned twice in this short passage that Mephibosheth was lame in both feet; it was likely emphasized because it was so unusual for a King to exalt and show favor to such an outcast as a lame person was in that day and age.
In fact, from the Dead Sea Scrolls, we learn that the Essenes, a Jewish religious group of Jesus’ day, actually excluded the disabled from the religious community: “Anyone who is maimed in hand or foot, lame or blind or deaf or dumb or with a visible mark in his flesh….These may not enter or take their place in the midst of the community.” (64) Jesus, by contrast, commands the members of his new kingdom community to invite precisely these people: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (Luke 14:13). Jesus was directly defying contemporary norms and social practices, and establishing the principles of the Kingdom:
[The Kingdom is thus paradoxical and revolutionary in many ways….the King was a Suffering Servant who was crucified, lose life to find it, last will be first, humbled will be exalted, meek inherit the earth, the servants are the greatest, …The kingdom is upside down, it challenged status quo by including women, the poor, outcasts, and Gentiles.]
So how else can we describe the kingdom?
It is the time of the fulfillment of the covenants to Abraham and David, A time of a restored earth where the faithful will worship and serve their God forever under the reign of a righteous leader of the Davidic line, which we now know to be Christ the King.
It means restored relationships between people and God, people with each other, and creation. Peace and justice. No more war, sickness, death, physical impairments, poverty, inequality, racism. Isa 11 describes how animals that used to kill each other will instead take up cuddling. Like the wolf and the lamb lying down together. In the words of Tom Shetler, a professor at Bethany, quote “We’ll get to tickle a bear…I can’t wait!”
So when is the Kingdom?
Well, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t tickled a bear anytime lately :). “Tickling bears” hasn’t quite made it into my list of interests on my Facebook profile. So it seems that the Kingdom is yet to come in the future. And yet after Jesus read a portion from Isa 61 that describes the Kingdom –"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, etc, he said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). So it looks like the Kingdom has already begun. The most common view of the “Kingdom” in recent scholarship is that it is both in the present and in the future—it will be fully realized or consummated in the future following Christ’s second coming, but it is now in a process of “in-breaking” into the present.
This “in-breaking” of the kingdom began in the person and work of Christ. His meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of people and identifying with the poor and marginalized are signs of that dawning kingdom. It is like the Firstfruits concept—an early harvest festival described in Leviticus 23 when the full harvest was not yet present, but the beginnings of the harvest had already arrived. The presence of those firstfruits caused rejoicing for they were visible, tangible evidence that the full harvest would surely come. Interestingly, Jesus actually rose from the dead on precisely the day when, in Jewish worship, the first ripe sheaf of the harvest was presented to the Lord--That showed that life would triumph over death in the Kingdom.
Other firstfruits, or ways that the Kingdom broke in through Christ, included his miracles, and the ways he fought injustice, and embraced outcasts, lepers, women, Gentiles, etc. For example, in Jesus’ time, tax collectors had one of the 7 occupations that automatically deprived persons of Jewish civil and political rights. Yet Jesus ate with them, to the disgust of the Pharisees, who muttered, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). Jesus responded to them by telling the parable of the lost sheep. Unlike the bad shepherds (which was a metaphor for kings) described in the Jeremiah reading today, Christ is the righteous and just King who proclaims Himself to be the Good Shepherd. It is His pleasure to seek and save the lost, to leave the 99 and rejoice over the recovery of one lost sinner. It’s important to note that he didn’t eat with sinners to accept their behavior as right, but rather to draw them to himself and His Kingdom in repentance. His love and grace not only invites, but pursues and seeks lost sinners where they are.
Christ’s role as Shepherd King was foreshadowed in Ezekiel 34… “I myself will search for my sheep… I will feed them…I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak” –These verses describe how the Gospel of the Kingdom is more than just forgiveness and being saved for heaven…it’s about wholeness spiritually and physically. Christ’s ministry was holistic, meaning he addressed both physical and spiritual needs. He was the master at "Show and Tell"…he showed the kingdom by his healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and seeking justice for the poor and marginalized, and he told the kingdom through his preaching and parables.
Christ our King said (John 20:21), “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”; Christ the King sends us as His ambassadors to invite others, like Andrew did, into the Kingdom through both our words and deeds. The in-breaking of the Kingdom continues when we carry on the King’s work, following in His footsteps by the power of the Spirit. Jesus said in John 14:12,"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.” –And so we continue Christ’s work by reaching out, whether in the cafeteria or the break room inviting an outcast to eat with us, showing no partiality, seeking the lost, healing the sick, binding up the injured, strengthening the weak, addressing poverty and fighting all forms of injustice such as racism, gender inequality, feeding His sheep both physically and spiritually. We are His hands and feet, called to Show and Tell the gospel of the kingdom wherever we are and wherever God may send us, for example, Botswana, Africa.
For about 5 years now, I’ve felt God calling me to be a missionary there. Botswana has one of the highest AIDS rates in the world. AIDS is killing so many parents and leaving thousands of orphans behind. While I finished up my education and training, I realized I didn’t need to wait until I get there to work for biblical justice: I started giving presentations on AIDS at St Kate’s and Cretin-Derham Hall, and helped organize a benefit dance, a walk at the Mall Of America, and the Fight AIDS 5K to raise awareness and money to help AIDS orphans in Africa. I share that just to show that anyone can make a difference wherever they are. But I know if I just stayed here, I wouldn’t be fulfilling His calling to go to Botswana. I was excited to join Youth for Christ because of the holistic nature of their ministry which includes both evangelism & discipleship, as well as AIDS prevention and care for orphans. The vision for my ministry is to share the gospel with youth and disciple those who accept Christ’s invitation to enter His kingdom, and teach an AIDS-prevention course in schools that encourages abstinence and dismantles the gender inequality as well as the stigma against those with AIDS. I also hope to organize a music/drama team… I want to help kids find Christ before they find AIDS, to proclaim freedom to those in bondage to sin, to empower women and girls, to preserve life in the context of death, to bring Christ’s hope in the face of despair.
Christ the King calls us “forth into the world both to invite people to faith in Him and also to erect such signs or firstfruits of the coming kingdom, confident that He will one day return to complete the victory over the kingdom of darkness.” We have the privilege of participating alongside Christ in His plan of redemption and restoration until the Kingdom comes in its fullness and evil will be totally defeated and His redemption will be complete.
And an integral part of preaching the gospel of the Kingdom is also proclaiming that that fullness of the Kingdom is at hand—ushered in by the second coming. Next week begins the season of Advent, which means coming. In it, we will hear John the Baptist’s cry, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!” This isn’t just a remembrance of Christ’s first coming, but a call to alert us to the reality of His second coming, which will usher in the fullness of the Kingdom. I used to think the Second Coming was something far off and that all those people who talk about it so much are just hyped up, but as I’ve studied it more, I am more and more convinced that His return is quite possibly in our lifetime. And Yes, the fullness of the Kingdom will be peaceful and just, but its fullness will be preceded by a season of great unrest and judgment. In other words, before we get to tickle any bears, we might, metaphorically speaking, get eaten by one…or perhaps by a raging pack of wolverines. For it will truly get harder and more painful in the last days to stand firm for Christ. Persecution and false teaching will increase. Remember the passage from Luke 21 last week?—family members may betray you, some will be killed for their faith. Are you ready to stand for Him and for the truth of the gospel of the kingdom, even in the midst of opposition, persecution, and deception?
So now is the time to wake up and shake off our complacency and mediocrity and truly seek the King wholeheartedly—to know Him more and more intimately—to dig into the Word and seek understanding of His ways and purposes so that we ourselves are ready to persevere and stand loyal to Him in faith when deception and opposition increases, and so that Christ the King can send us out into the highways and hedges, here and to the ends of the earth, to Show and Tell the gospel of the Kingdom. Christ is sending people as forerunners of His second coming, like John of Baptist was for His first, to invite people into His kingdom, calling them to repent, submit to His leadership, and enter into close fellowship with the King--for that is truly His desire, to be in close fellowship with each of us, to “share meals” with us like King David did with Mephibosheth. At the banquet of the Kingdom at the end of the age, our King of Kings will share fellowship with people from every tribe, nation, and language. Luke 13:29—“Then people will come from the east and the west, from the North & the south and will eat in the Kingdom of God.” And how will all these people be invited to the banquet? Christ the King’s design is to use us to extend the Kingdom invitation to the ends of the earth.
So in summary, we hear Christ the King’s invitation, typically through His ambassadors, to share fellowship with Him; we meet the King and enter His kingdom by accepting his unmerited favor/grace through Calvary; we are sent out as His ambassadors to invite others in to the Kingdom and to be a visible sign by word and deed of the fullness of the Kingdom that is to come; and we are sent out as forerunners to proclaim that that fullness of the Kingdom is at hand and to prepare others to stand firm at Christ’s return and share in the great Kingdom banquet. Then after His return, the fullness of His kingdom will come…and as the perfect King, He will reign for ever and ever. And my professor Tom Shetler will blissfully tickle bears to his heart’s content :).
So, how are you doing in all this? Have you personally accepted the King’s invitation to share fellowship with Him? Is Christ the King of your life? Have you accepted his unmerited favor, or are you still trusting in your own good works or abilities to earn His favor or a place at the banquet in the Kingdom? Have you heeded his call to Show and Tell the gospel of the Kingdom? Are you inviting others in by reaching out with love and grace? Are you living by the Kingdom’s revolutionary principles now as a sign of what is to come? And are you ready for what is to come? Are you ready for the Last Days?—to stand for Him when it gets painful?
Perhaps in light of all this, you feel a bit like Mephibosheth in the presence of the King, like a dead dog, incapable or inadequate to do these things… You may ask, Who am I to preach the gospel of the kingdom, to invite others, to heal the sick, etc??…but remember that God uses ordinary, weak, “lame” people; It is not a matter of what you can do, but of what you allow the King to do through you. Great grace is needed to walk in the King’s footsteps, but great grace is provided. It all starts from getting to know the King, so let us accept his invitation to share fellowship with Him and let us press on to know Him more. When you reach that point of realizing you can’t follow in his footsteps on your own (i.e. in essence that both your feet are lame), but you choose to trust and rely in the King’s strength to do it, then you will see Him work through your words and actions to invite others into the Kingdom. And who knows if a person the King invites through you may be the next Ravi Zacharias or, in Andrew’s case, Simon Peter, the one whom Christ entrusted to lead His church? There’s only one way to find out…But no matter who it is, our Christ the King, [the Good Shepherd], shows no partiality and rejoices over each and every lost sheep that has been found. So, compelled by His love for all people and empowered by His Spirit, may we join Him here and to the ends of the earth in His kingdom mission to seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak. Amen.
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