The Party

1. The Party

2. A parable about: The Party • 1) Design Perfect Party • 2) A parable • 3) Implications of Parable.

3. Design a Wedding Party • No limit to money etc. • 1) Pick Location- you have a jet to fly everyone there. • 2) Pick Clothes- • 3) Pick Food • 4) Pick Band • 5) Party Favors • 6) Other? • 7) Invitation List

4. What was your Party like? • Details Please!

5. Now let’s a series of things happen. • 1) All your invitees decline at the last minute. What would you do? • 2) What would you do if your friend who was checking up the invite list was physically attacked and killed by the invitees? • 3) So after a large number of people finally come, what would you do if someone in the Wedding party did not wear the clothes you had bought, but was at the party in jeans and a t-shirt? You ask why and get a shrug of the shoulders.

6. The Story of the Wedding Banquet • Matt 22: 1-3 Jesus responded by telling still more stories. "God's kingdom," he said, "is like a king who threw a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out servants to call in all the invited guests. And they wouldn't come! • 4"He sent out another round of servants, instructing them to tell the guests, 'Look, everything is on the table, the prime rib is ready for carving. Come to the feast!' • 5-7"They only shrugged their shoulders and went off, one to weed his garden, another to work in his shop. The rest, with nothing better to do, beat up on the messengers and then killed them. The king was outraged and sent his soldiers to destroy those thugs and level their city. • 8-10"Then he told his servants, 'We have a wedding banquet all prepared but no guests. The ones I invited weren't up to it. Go out into the busiest intersections in town and invite anyone you find to the banquet.' The servants went out on the streets and rounded up everyone they laid eyes on, good and bad, regardless. And so the banquet was on—every place filled. • 11-13"When the king entered and looked over the scene, he spotted a man who wasn't properly dressed. He said to him, 'Friend, how dare you come in here looking like that!' The man was speechless. Then the king told his servants, 'Get him out of here—fast. Tie him up and ship him to hell. And make sure he doesn't get back in.' • 14"That's what I mean when I say, 'Many get invited; only a few make it.'"

7. From the story • Who is throwing the party? • Why do people turn down the invite? • Who do they kill? • Who is invited instead? • What is required to come? • What must you do at the party? (hint: clothes) • What does the clothes represent? • What does the party represent? • How is this description of Heaven jell with your expectation?

8. Implications-> Heaven • Many people have the view that heaven is like the Garden of Eden or a monastery. Does the Bible describe it that way? Is that how the text describes heaven? • (If Time) Where is Heaven located? • Ps 78: 23Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens; 24he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven. 25Human beings ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat. 26He let loose the east wind from the heavens and by his power made the south wind blow. 27He rained meat down on them like dust, birds like sand on the seashore. 28He made them come down inside their camp, all around their tents. 29They ate till they were gorged—he had given them what they craved. • So from this passage where might you think heaven is? • 32In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe. 33So he ended their days in futility and their years in terror. • So the point of the 78th Psalm is not to describe heaven, but to describe how God has provided for people and they turn God down. Just like the Party. So is the idea that Heaven is literally in the sky a truth of the passage or is it used as an illustration of God’s power?

9. Where is heaven? • Mat 4:12When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. 13Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— 14to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: • 15“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” • 17From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” • So is the sky falling? Is heaven in the sky literally coming to the earth? • Then where is heaven?

10. Summary- Key Takeaways • The bible tells stories to help us understand the Truth. Believing the Bible is literally true does not mean you misrepresent a story as a textbook. • The Heaven is like the party you planned-----only better. Heaven is not a monastery. Heaven is not the Garden of Eden, but a celebration!

11. The parable for today talks about heaven. • The Parable of the Wedding Banquet • 1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. • 4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ • 5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. • 8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 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.