Inviting Others In | Jud Wilhite

Well, come on guys, what an amazing time of worship. I'm just so glad that we get to gather and worship our God, no matter the circumstance, every single weekend. I want to give a big shout out to all the men and women watching with our partnership with God Behind Bars. Can we clap it up for them? We love you guys and you are such an important part of our church. Well, we are finishing up our series this weekend and if you want to follow along with the teaching notes, you can open the Central Church app under the experience tab and follow along there. But for now, let's give it up big for Pastor Judd as he comes out and brings us a message of hope. All right. Well, hey, welcome everybody. Big shout out to our Central family joining us at some different locations around the Valley and beyond. Our Central Sunrise Mountain and Summerlin, Central Kingman and Aliante families, thank you guys for being with us today. Hey, so this next December, my wife Lori and I will celebrate 30 years of marriage. Wow. We got married when we were like six, you know. 30 years of marriage, amazing. And a lot happens, you know, when you've been married that long. Like one thing that happens is you're very aware of how each other is wired up and, you know, like certain things that kind of drive you crazy, you start to work those out, like social gatherings, okay? So as a pastor, I'm at a lot of social gatherings, birthday parties, friends parties, over at people's houses. And when that happens, my wife Lori and I go together. Now Lori is an extreme extrovert, y'all. Like she loves, when she gets around people, there is no clock. Like she's in a timeless environment and she could close out every gathering. In fact, she literally does. She will be that person that you're like, okay, time to go now. We did it. Lori will stay to the end. I consider myself a flourishing introvert, okay? I love people. I love being around people. But after, you know, a while, I got to get alone again and recharge my batteries, right? You know, my introverts know what I'm talking about. And so this became an issue when we would go to like a party at somebody's house. We go in and Lori and I would agree before we get there, hey, we're gonna stay for like two to three hours. I'm usually good for two to

three hours, which is very reasonable. Who are my two to three hour people? That's not crazy. Lori just five to six hours is her jam. You know what I mean? Like there's no time here. But I'm like, I'm like two to three hours. I'm good, right? So we agree. We go in. Here's what happens again and again is, you know, that that two to three hour time window would come to a close and I would, I would give her the nod, the 30 minute warning, right? 30 minute warning. And you think she heard that and went right past her, right? Because she's now in a timeless environment. So then I would walk over and give her that gentle squeeze on the shoulder, you know, or the gentle squeeze on the leg. Like, you know, it's about it's about that time. She'd go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she would just keep going, right? And eventually I'd have to be the guy that comes over and puts my arm around her and physically stands her up, says, we love you guys, but we're leaving and start walking to the door. And she would say to me, you're being rude. And I would say to her, you're being rude. We had an agreement and we are long past the agreement, right? So this is just our life. This is social gatherings. But many years ago, Lori and I did what older married couples do. We decided we would show up together, but we would leave separately. And so that's what we do now. We get to a party, we show up together, and then one of us takes a ride share home. Usually me, right? You know, and so I'm good for my two to three hours. She can close the thing out. Good for you. God bless you. And I just leave. I do the Irish goodbye. Anybody do the Irish goodbye? The Irish goodbye. You don't announce it. You don't make a bye, everybody. I'm leaving. You just leave out the back door. People see Lori and they still think I'm there. But I'm long gone. I've been home for an hour and a half. It's the Irish goodbye. Everybody's happy. Lori gets to close it out. This is how we stay married for 30 years. You're welcome. But parties are a part of life and gatherings and they're kind of a big part of like Jesus ministry too. We see him do his first miracle at a wedding feast and celebration. We see Jesus often gathering for dinner parties with different people and some of the great stories that we have from the, from his ministry come sitting around a table at

a party or at a banquet. But what I want to look with you today is a story of a party where Jesus is gathered with some different religious leaders and he tells the story of a banquet. It's known as the parable of the great banquet. And it's really the story of God's dinner party. It's ultimately the story of salvation, that God has invited everybody to come and feast with him, to know him, to celebrate him. Jesus came and lived and died and rose again to make a way for all of us to be in a life-giving relationship with God. So we're invited to a party. And I promise the air conditioner will work at that party. It's gonna be a great party. It's gonna be a celebration, right? And so Jesus tells this story to illustrate that none of us want to miss the party. Don't miss the party. Let's look at this, Luke chapter 14, beginning in verse 16, when we get to the red word, say this out loud here with me. He says, a man prepared a great feast. And that man in the story is a representative of God. He prepares a great feast and he sent out many invitations. And when the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, come, the banquet is ready, but they all began making what? Excuses. Now this is kind of unthinkable to Jesus' original hearers. Because back then, what you notice in the story

is there's a double invite. The first invite goes out, a lot of invitations, and people would accept, like RSVP, because the person preparing the banquet has to know how much food to make, right? And so they've already kind of accepted the first invitation. Then they would usually set a day, this is the day when it's gonna happen. So the servant goes around now to all the people who've been invited to say, hey, the food's ready, come and get it, the party's ready. And now all these people begin making excuses. Now commentators kind of read into Jesus' story and assume that part of what he's talking about is the initial invitation goes out to the Jewish people. The invitation to come to know Jesus, the invitation to come to follow Jesus, but then they began to make excuses. And so as we'll see, the invitation then goes out even further to everyone to come and celebrate at the messianic banquet, at the banquet of salvation, at the banquet God offers to all of us. So if we wanna make sure we make the party, the first challenge from Jesus' story is simply this, to face your excuses, to face your excuses. You know, a lot of different people will hear excuses, but probably police officers hear some of the best, right? And there's a lot of excuses that police officers hear,

but I picked up a few that I thought were funny. One senior citizen got pulled over and this was their excuse for why they were speeding. Check this out. They said, at my age, there's a good chance I'll forget where I'm going, so I try to get there before I do. Come on. Somebody's like, yes. It's like, as long as I know, put the pedal to the metal, right? I laughed at this one. Check this guy out. He said, back in high school, I used to keep a Bible in my car so that if I got pulled over, I could say I was late to youth group. Come on, man. Don't be bringing Jesus into your speeding, okay? I hope you keep a Bible in a car, but not for that, right? We're pretty good at making excuses. In Jesus' story, this invitation to come and join the party, come and join the celebration goes out, but people begin making excuses. Help me out on the red word here. Luke 14, beginning in verse 18. These are the excuses. One says, I have just bought a field and must inspect it, which by the way, this is a pretty lame excuse when you think about it,

because in a time where land was expensive and it was always scarce, you wouldn't just go buy a field and never have looked at it. That'd be like saying, I went and bought a home, and now I'm gonna go check out the neighborhood and see if it's a safe neighborhood to live in, right? The next person says, I have just bought five pairs of oxen and I want to try them out. Please what? Excuse me. Please excuse me. Again, not a very good excuse because in the Middle East at the time, if you were to buy five pairs of oxen, one of the number one things you would want to know is can those oxen work together? Because if they can't work together, your investment's meaningless. So this would be like saying, I bought a whole bunch of automobiles and now I'm gonna go see if they have engines in them. Right? Like it's a crazy excuse. And then look at what the next person says. Another said, I just got married. Well, there you go. I just got married. But if they married anybody like my wife, then they're gonna be in trouble

because she's gonna miss out on the party of a lifetime. So the idea in the story is that all of these excuses are not really valid. And a lot of people make excuses for not surrendering to God and coming to his table and experiencing the rich and full life that he has for them. Some people say, well, I'm just busy or I'm not good enough or I've got a past or I need more proof. If I saw this or if I experienced that, then I would believe. But Jesus' story is challenging us to realize that the picture of salvation isn't just one more thing to do. The picture of salvation is something we get invited into to experience. It's a party. It's a celebration. You're an honored guest. God takes care of all the details. The food is all laid out for you. All you have to do is feast and celebrate on the goodness of his grace and love and kindness. You're invited to the party. Somebody say party. Party. Right. You've been invited into a life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. You're invited into a party of meaning and purpose. You're invited into a life filled with love and joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. You're invited into a life where you realize that the world may be out of control, but God is still in control. A life where you may not understand all that you're going through, but you believe with all your heart that God watches out for you, that God has your back, that God goes before you and behind you,

that he's above you and below you, that he's near you and that he's moving, that you are his child, that you're forgiven through faith in Jesus, that you're not defined by your past mistakes and failures, that you're not defined by what your parents did or what they didn't do, that you're not defined by what the world says you are, but you're defined by the love of God in Jesus Christ. And so every day, every day you and I can celebrate at God's party that we're forgiven, that we're free, that we're valuable, that we have a purpose, that we get to be a part of an awesome church community, we get to be a part of doing good in the world, that we're not alone, that we're part of the fellowship of the redeemed, and that one day God will wipe every tear from our eyes and there will be no more suffering and no more pain. And until then, we live in faith in the goodness of God every day. All are invited. All are invited. So don't make excuses. Come and join the celebration. And then the second principle from Jesus' party is simply this, to then fill the house. To then fill the house. Look at this, Luke chapter 14 beginning in verse 21. So the invite goes out, all of these people make excuses, and now the party's all ready, but the table isn't full. And so it says, his master was furious and he said to his servants, go quickly into the streets and the alleys of the town and what? Invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. So he says, look, the A-list people aren't coming. The people on the society pages aren't coming. All right, the master says, go on out, go out into the city, invite everybody now. And who is everybody on his list? Well, they're all by definition like beggars. They're like people that don't deserve to be there, but they're offered a seat at the table. Everybody can come and eat at the table. It's like the first time I ever flew first class.

Any of you ever flown first class? Like I remember the first time I was at the airport and I was going to like a church conference, and I'm coach person, you know, I'm coach people, you know what I'm saying? And we got called up. We took vouchers to delay to a later flight so that we get some travel vouchers. And we got called up in the midst of this, and this lady says, hey, I'm going to upgrade you guys to first class. It's the first time I ever flew first class. Hey, man, you know, first class, they like, they like bring you drinks and stuff before, before the flight takes off, you know, you know what I'm saying? Lady comes by and she's like, are you thirsty? I wasn't thirsty, but I'm like, yeah. What you got? I'll take, I'll take two of everything. Bring it out, right? She said, do you want some snacks? I said, oh, definitely. I want some snacks. Bring it out. And I took every, we were living it up the whole time. We're sitting in those big fat chairs, and we're getting all the food, and we're getting like plates, and like, actual like knives and forks. And I kept looking back at all those coach people, and I'm like, this is awesome. And we just kept looking at each other because we knew deep down, we don't belong here. We didn't pay to be here. We're coach people, but we're flying in first class. Listen, this is Jesus' story. God's banquet is open, and all these people at the table that go, the invitation goes out to, they don't belong there. They didn't get there by their own effort, by their own merit. Like just the other day, they would have been scrounging for food anywhere they could find it. And now the poor, and the lame, and the blind, and the hurting are sitting at the table of God's banquet. And they're feasting, and they're celebrating with God. The invitation goes out. The party is open. And not just in the cities and in the alleys. Look at what he says next.

Luke chapter 14. Help me out when we get to this red word. He says, after this, the servant had done this. He reported, there's still room for more. So his master said, go out into the country lanes, and behind the hedges, and urge anyone you find to come in, so that the house will be what? Full. He says, for none of those I first invited will even get, will get to the table. get even the smallest taste of my banquet. So it starts and he says, go out into the alleys and into the streets more locally. But then he says, go even further. The idea here is non-Jewish people are invited in. Gentiles are invited in. Everybody is invited in to come to the table. And Jesus is saying, look, go out and invite and call them in and bring them in to sit at my table and to feast and to celebrate. He says, urge them to come in, urge them. Some translations say compel. And that's an interesting word, because in the Middle East, the etiquette was this. If you went out and you invited somebody to come to a dinner gathering and they were from a higher station than you, then you would immediately decline. It was just like protocol. Like, they're being nice to invite you. And then you respond by saying, oh, no, thank you. I appreciate the invitation. But in your mind, you're thinking, I don't belong at that table.

And so they would decline the initial invitation. And so in Jesus' story, the master is saying, no, no, no, compel them, urge them, challenge them to come in. I really mean it. Come and sit at my banquet and sit at my party. And it reminds us that God's table is available and is open and the challenges for us to do all that we can to fill his house. In fact, I've got some chairs that I brought with me here. These chairs just sort of represent people in our lives, people we may be praying for or thinking about. We at church, a couple of weeks ago, we wrote down the names of thousands of friends and family members that we were praying for and asking God to move in their lives. And these are all over our different locations. You'll see them all over the place and on the walls and in different setups at our different locations, the names of our friends and our family. And our staff and team have been consistently walking by and praying for each one of those individuals, one by one, name by name, asking God to move and to work in their life, asking God to move in their life so that they could come and celebrate at his party, at his banquet. But I want you to just think a little bit about some other people in your life. I've got some different chairs here.

This chair represents like a work chair. I don't know what your work life looks like. Maybe you sit in a chair like this. Maybe you sit in a stool. Maybe you don't sit in a chair that looks anything like this. Maybe you work on your feet all day or you're in your car. But think about your work life, the people that you encounter at work. And this week, I want to encourage you to be prayerful about some of those people you may encounter. Maybe they'll ask you like, hey, what are you doing this weekend? And you could say, well, I'm gonna go be really hot at church and you're welcome to come along with me. Maybe somebody will ask you about Easter. Just this week, somebody said, hey, what do you do for a living? I was just out in the community midday and I said, hey, well, I'm a pastor at a church here in town. And they just lit right up. They said, oh, I'm new to town. I've been looking for a church. I said, well, this is your sign from God. And then I pulled an invitation out and invited them to church, invited them to come along to Easter.

Like it's that simple when you're prayerful and you're ready and God can do the rest. You're just trying to place an invitation for somebody to come and experience Him. Think about your work relationships. Ask God maybe for a moment or an opportunity. There's another group of people here that we'll call parents of young children. You're in it right now. I mean, this is what this little stroller and car seat represents. And so you're interacting with other parents or with caregivers, maybe with teachers. Think about your friends, your mom friends, your dad friends that are navigating life right now. Maybe they want a spiritual foundation for their children. Maybe they want their kids to grow up with more of a foundation than just what the culture throws at them. Maybe they're tired, they're worn out. They would love to connect with some friends. Think about those people, pray about them. Ask God to give you an opportunity to invite them, to compel them to come along and to join Him at His table. And then this represents like a camp chair. Maybe you're a camping person or a rec chair. If you throw a chair out like this to watch a different sporting event, a baseball game or something like that. And sometimes when you're sitting in chairs like this,

there's lots of opportunities for conversation. And in those moments, just ask God to give you wisdom and sharing the difference He's made in your life. Maybe it can plant a seed in their life and you can invite them to come in. This last chair here, this is a chair from our Henderson Auditorium and whatever location you may be attending at, you can think of a chair from that auditorium as a substitute. But this chair, something special happens when we sit in these chairs, right? When we sit in these chairs, for some of us, this is where we first surrendered our life to faith in Jesus Christ. This is where. We first started to get honest and real with some sin issues in our life. This is where we began to make spiritual commitments to be a better husband or a better spouse, wife or a better parent. This is where God began to break the chains of addiction in some of our lives. This is where God gave us the encouragement and the strength to keep going when we wanted to give up. This is where we feel like God heard our prayers when we cried out to him, when we were desperate and at the end of ourselves. God does special things in our lives when we get to this chair.

And my encouragement for you this week is to just keep praying, God, who do I need to invite from these chairs to see them move to this chair? And Easter is a great opportunity to do that, to take advantage of saying, look, a lot of people are looking for an opportunity to go to church on Easter or to celebrate Easter. Maybe they're open to this whole faith thing, even though they're not sure what they believe. This could be a great opportunity. God, just give me opportunities and wisdom to help people move from these chairs into this chair, because you can change somebody's life when they sit in this chair. It's like the master says in the story, God basically says, bring them in, right? Bring in the blind and the crippled and the hungry and the lame. Bring in the doubting and the confused and the lonely and the lost and the stubborn. Bring in the cynics and the difficult and the proud and the hopeless. Bring in those who have blown it. Bring in those who are hungry for meaning in their life. Bring in those who have more questions than answers. Bring in those who are hurting. Bring in those who don't have it all together. Bring in those who are up and in as well as those who are down and out.

Bring in Chiefs fans and Patriots fans and Eagles fans and Raiders fans, even Cowboys fans. Bring them in. Bring in the Dodger fans. Bring in the Padre fans. Bring in the Angels fans. Bring them in. Bring in all who need to be forgiven. Bring them in. God loves them. He's invited them to his table. And we wanna keep a chair out for every one of them until there's no more people left because every seat is full. Don't be discouraged. Don't give up. Keep praying. Keep taking risks. Urge them to come in because God has a place for them at his table. And so we at Central, go ahead, put your hands together for that. I feel that. We say our mission as a church is to introduce people to Jesus and help them follow him. And it's both. We wanna introduce people to Jesus and then we wanna provide all kinds of tools and resources to help them grow deeper in their faith and deeper in their walk with God.

But Easter's a great opportunity for a lot of people to come to know Christ. In fact, this week I had a birthday, y'all. Another one. Oh, yeah. Double nickels. Can you believe it? Double nickels. It was a reflect. Yeah, wow. It's exactly right. Thank you. That's what it felt like for me. You know, like my 50th birthday, I blew right through that. No problem. Age is just a number. I don't know. 55, I like stopped like, whoa. I've lived longer than I'm gonna live on this earth. I've made more of a contribution already than I'll probably be able to make from here going forward. Maybe not, who knows? But it was a sobering kind of moment. And so one of the great things about birthdays today is people wish you a happy birthday. Your friends reach out. People text you, email you. And I appreciate that. And some of the texts I got really made me reflect.

Because a few of the people said, hey, Central was where I came to faith. And I just wanted to reach out and say thank you. One person says Central is where God changed my life. And I wanna say thank you. One person told me about how they had taken their first steps towards sobriety by coming to church and beginning to take those steps in their life. And they wanted to say thank you. And I just read these texts and I thought about the brevity of life. I thought about how time is flying. I thought about how like, you can't make new old friends. I'm very thankful for my old friends, right? But you also realize that, man, when I think about the days I have left, I start thinking about this is really all that matters. Helping people come to experience God and his love and be changed by his goodness. And so what went from a reflective moment on my 55th birthday became not only a Thanksgiving moment, but a prayer. of just saying, God, for all the days you give me that I have left, I wanna give myself to this work, to helping people come to know you and experiencing you. God, I wanna invite people to come and join you at your table. God, use me. And I believe he will, and I believe he will use you. You just open your heart this week, God, and say,

use me to help other people come to your table because it's a party, it's a celebration. Everything's been prepared, forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ, love, joy, and peace through God's spirit who can guide you, the ability to stand strong even in difficulty and struggle, all of it's been prepared for you. You believe it, you receive it, and then you walk in it and you grow in it, and it changes you from the inside out. And some of you, maybe you're here today and maybe you've had a lot of excuses, but you've yet to really cross that line of faith in your life. And I wanna give you the opportunity to reach out to God, to trust him, to accept that invitation in your life today. So would all of you bow your heads and close your eyes. If you'd like to be a follower of Jesus today, you could take that first step by repeating a simple prayer after me, either out loud or in your own heart and mind. Just say, dear God, I thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus into the world. I believe he died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me for my sins. Give me the gift of eternal life. Help me face the challenges that I'm up against. God, I surrender my life to you. Friends, with every head bowed and every eye closed, if that's your prayer, if it's your commitment, I wanna ask you to just slip your hand in the air.

Whatever location you're a part of this weekend, just slip your hand in the air. If you're watching online, if you're in one of our locations inside a prison, in our partnership with God Behind Bars, just slip your hand in the air. Just acknowledge you're gonna trust him and follow him in your life today. God, we thank you for these people. We thank you for the amazing invitation you've given all of us. And we're so grateful to be able to worship you and celebrate you and eat at your great banquet table. We pray you forgive and you heal and restore each of these individuals. And God, we pray you use all of us to fill your house, to invite friends, to urge them to come, and that God, you will move in that and work for your glory and for your fame. We thank you for these moments together. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen. Amen. Let's put our hands together for those who made spiritual commitments in their life today. Let me say a word. If you made a spiritual commitment, we would love to see you right after our experience. We've got an area called Nudist Central. Just swing out there,

let them know you made a spiritual commitment. We wanna give you a journal and some tools and resources that'll be helpful to you. And so make sure to do that right after the experience. Well, let's put our hands together and stand across our locations for our location pastors. They're gonna close out their experiences.