Sermon Info
Summary
Jesus’ greatest story today, the Parable of the Wedding Feast, shows us the results of accepting or rejecting God’s gracious and surprising invitation. Through the Gospel, God gives a gracious invitation to everyone, regardless of social or moral standing, to be in His beautifully diverse Kingdom, His Church. Accepting His invitation leads to joy. Rejecting His invitation, through self righteousness or trusting a false gospel, leads to being shut out of His kingdom. All of us who have accepted the invitation have the joyous privilege of inviting everyone into the joy of God’s Kingdom. This Easter season is the perfect moment to invite, invite, invite, as many as you can to worship with you at Rolling Hills.
Content
“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” - D.A. Carson
But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. Matthew 22:5
Apathy causes us to drift further away from God – never towards Him.
How often have we missed out on what God wants for us because we have perceived better things to do?
Then he said to his servants, “The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” Matthew 22:8-9
God has invited us to the party, and He’s invited us to bring others.
Everyone is invited, but no one deserves to be invited.
So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. Matthew 22:10
You don’t get in on your own merit.
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:26-28
There is only one way to salvation, and that way is Jesus.
You don’t get saved based on what you did but on what Jesus did.
The gift is free for you, but it cost Jesus everything.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9
