Enter God’s kingdom by grace, or you won’t enter at all

Sermon for Trinity 2

1 John 3:13-18  +  Luke 14:16-24

Last week’s Gospel (the rich man and poor Lazarus) taught us to set our eyes on the goal of eternal life with the Triune God, which will both help us get through the trials of this life and help us avoid the temptation to get caught up in the good times of this life. Today’s Gospel teaches us that entrance into eternal life is by God’s grace, and it comes with a warning not to despise the grace of God. Enter God’s kingdom by grace, or you won’t enter at all.

Jesus was sitting at a supper when He spoke the words of our Gospel. He had just warned the other guests not to choose the highest place, as He saw them doing, but to the choose the lowest place, allowing the master of the house to raise them up. Each of the guests was of the opinion, “I think I deserve better than the rest!” Stop that!, Jesus says. Stop thinking about how much you think you’re worth! Even the sinless Son of Man took the lowest place and waited there and served there and even gave His life there, until God the Father finally exalted Him. How much more shouldn’t you, who are sinful and unclean by nature, do the same!

Then, Jesus warned His fellow guests not to invite people to supper who can repay you, or who can invite you back in return, but rather invite people who can’t repay you, that you may be blessed at the resurrection! Their thinking was, “I’ll do nice things for people who deserve it, who will treat me well in return!” Stop that!, He says. Stop dealing with other people selfishly, thinking about what you will get out of it! That’s not how God is, and it’s not how His children are. He does good to those who don’t deserve it and who can’t repay Him, out of the goodness of His heart. That’s what heaven is like, and that’s what the inhabitants of heaven will be like.

And then a man at the supper blurts out, apparently thinking he’s making a profound and pious observation: Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God! That’s where our Gospel begins. And the question is, who are those who will eat bread there?

But before we learn about the “who,” we first have to define what “there” is. Because when many people think of entering God’s kingdom, they think, well, during this life I’ll believe that God exists and that I have a deep relationship with Him, but I’ll basically do what I want, maybe show up for church once in a while, and that’s that. And then I’ll end up in heaven when I die. That’s the kingdom of God, right?

But what are we really talking about when we talk about the kingdom of God? Are we talking about going to heaven? Do we mean the life with God after this life, after the Last Day, after the resurrection of all the dead? Well, that is where the kingdom of God will exist in perfection. But no one will be there in that perfection who did not first enter here in this imperfection.

Jesus proclaimed during His ministry, The kingdom of God is at hand! The kingdom of God is among you! The kingdom of God isn’t something that stands off in the future. It’s where Christ reigns as King in people’s hearts—He the King of grace, we the subjects under Him in His kingdom. To eat bread in God’s kingdom means entering God’s kingdom of grace here and now, that is, the Holy Christian Church, being “in the Church” and part of that great assembly which assembles in little groups here and there throughout the world, but which God sees all at once as one giant assembly.

Now, being “in the Church” doesn’t mean simply being in this church building. It’s much more than that. And it doesn’t mean getting baptized and then going away, or attending services off and on, when you feel like it. It means Baptism accompanied by a living faith, daily repentance, constant nourishment through hearing the Word, meditating on it, receiving the Lord’s body and blood, and then putting the Word of the Lord into practice, growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord, avoiding sin, bearing the cross, prayer, showing love to fellow Christians, not in word or in tongue only, as John warned in today’s Epistle, but in deed and in truth, and doing all this day by day by day by day. Those who are thus “in the Church” are already eating bread in the kingdom of God.

This is what it means to be in God’s kingdom. It’s not what a lot of people think. It’s serious business, it’s an earnest practice of the Christian religion. We don’t gather together on Sundays because it’s a nice thing to do. We gather together on the Lord’s Day because it’s part of what it means to be in the kingdom of God and it prepares us all to live as children of God’s kingdom on the days in between. Christianity cannot be a part of our life. It has to be our life.

But that’s not what most people are looking for, as Jesus’ parable demonstrates. A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ Come into the Christian Church, God calls out! I’ve sent My Son to redeem you from your sins, to suffer in your place, to guide and govern your life so that you may continue this supper for all eternity. Believe in Him and become part of His body, a member of His beloved Church. I offer it all to you by grace, for free!

But what happened? The ones who were invited made excuses. And they were lame excuses, too, weren’t they? Oops. I bought some land. I have to go see it. Oops. I bought some oxen. I have to go try them out. Oops. I got married, so I can’t attend your supper. Sorry.

Now notice, none of this is happening on the Last Day. It’s happening here and now. The Gospel invitation goes out to come into Christ’s beloved Church, and it’s rejected by all those who were at first invited.

So then the master of the house shows even more grace, more free and undeserved favor. He sends out more invitations, not to people who love him, not to people who can repay him, but to the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. Flawed people. Sinful people. Wicked people. People with nothing to offer God. These are the ones whom God calls to repentance and faith in His Son. And then to people along the highways and hedges, people who had no former relationship with this Master at all. Seemingly random people. Anyone and everyone is invited, to enter into God’s kingdom, God’s Church, for free, through Christ.

This is what God has done. And sadly, the first to be invited, like the Jews were, are often the first to decline the invitation. Something similar happens with those who were invited at a young age, or who have been members of the Church for a while. They start to think they don’t need as much grace as the really bad sinners of the world, that they have earned their place in the Church, in the kingdom of God. And then they start to realize, you know, I have better things to do than to pray, than to hear God’s Word, than to worry about what God says I’m supposed to do or how God says I’m supposed to act. And tragically, they end up declining God’s gracious invitation to enter His kingdom by grace.

And so, while there is great comfort in today’s Gospel for the poor sinner who yearns for God’s grace, it ends with a dire warning: For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper. That is, none of those who declined the invitation. If we were only talking about missing out on one earthly supper, big deal! But we aren’t. We’re talking about life and joy with God vs. death and torment in hell. To decline God’s invitation to join His Church and to be a living member of it is to remain in death and to choose everlasting condemnation. None of the excuses people made in this life will prove to be valid.

So the Holy Spirit pleads with you today, enter God’s kingdom by grace, or you won’t enter at all. And having entered, never leave! Always give thanks for the gift of being included in the Holy Christian Church, and treasure God’s grace, because there will never come a time when you need it less. Amen.