The Parable Of The Wedding Feast

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0:15Hello, good morning. I'm going to get a drink here. I tell myself, "Don't sing that loud. You got to preach after this." And then I sit right there, and I just hear this choir behind me. And I got to sing. I got to sing, too. My name is Nick Whitehead. I serve here as our pastor for Global Outreach. It's a joy to go to the Word with you this morning. So would you pray with me before we tackle Matthew 22? Father, your Word is a lamp to our feet. It is a light to our path. So we come again to your Word this morning. As we move to this next section in the Book of Matthew, let this Word guide us and confront us and encourage us in whatever ways you deem fitting this morning.

1:02Help me, by your Spirit, to serve those in this room well with your truth. I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen. In the early 20th century, a Christian preacher and pastor named Donald Barnhouse began to use a question in his ministry to springboard conversations about faith. He would ask people this: "If you died tonight and you stood before God, and he asked you, 'What right do you have to enter my heaven?' What would you say?" And Dr. Barnhouse found that people generally answered in three ways. Some would say, "I've tried to be a good person, a good neighbor, a good family member, a good citizen. I've generally done more good than bad, and I'm definitely not the worst of people." And then you'd find a second group who would think about the question and in honesty would remark, "I wouldn't have anything to say."

1:57These are the people who would remain speechless before God because of their guilt. They would have nothing to say in their own defense. And then finally, there would be a third group of people who would say, "I have absolutely no right to enter into your heaven. I have nothing to offer by way of my good deeds or by my merit, but my only hope is Jesus Christ, who died for my sins and clothed me with his righteousness. Only by way of him can I enter your heaven." I like Dr. Barnhouse's question. I think it's a good one. But I also thought that by the time God is asking you, "What right do you have to enter my heaven?" your fate will have already been sealed.

2:42You don't want to wait for that question. Our text this morning winds back the clock, and it leaves us with a diagnostic question that gives us an opportunity to act before it's too late. The question is this: What will you do now with God's gracious invitation to his wedding feast? An invitation has been offered to you, or if you've not yet heard it, it will be offered to you by the end of this sermon this morning. And the question for all of us is, how will we respond now to God's gracious invitation to his everlasting kingdom? So keep your Bibles open to Matthew 22. And if you've been with us for the past couple of weeks, you know that Jesus is on a roll with some parables. Our text today is the last of three in the series, and each one is a parable of judgment. It's designed to condemn and provoke the Jewish leaders. And last week, we looked at the second of these three parables, where Jesus condemns the Israelites at a corporate level.

3:44They, as an entire nation, have rejected Jesus, and so their punishment as a nation is that they will be stripped of their spiritual inheritance, and it will be given instead to those who will produce its fruits. And now this third parable, Jesus takes things up another notch. Here, he condemns not only Israel but all who spurn the invitation to all-satisfying and eternal communion with God. And the stakes here are quite high. The punishment is destruction. It is to be cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. And so Jesus is warning his hearers and us this morning with this simple main point, which I quote verbatim from verse 14.

4:31You can look at it, the last verse of the text. "Many are called, but few are chosen." Many are being invited into God's kingdom, but only a few will have a name tag and place mat at his royal table. And so Jesus' aim and the aim of this sermon is to call you to this. Receive God's gracious invitation to the wedding supper of the Lamb. Do not ignore, do not reject, do not abuse his gracious invitation into his everlasting heaven. And what I want to do is walk through this text under the headings of two reflective questions for us to ponder together this morning. The first is this. Will you come to the wedding feast?

5:20And we're going to unpack that in verses one through 10. Will you come to the wedding feast? And then second, what will you wear? What will you wear? And we'll unpack that in verses 11 through 14. So let's start with that first question. Will you come to the wedding feast? Look at verse one, chapter 22. Read along with me. "And again, Jesus spoke to them," this is the chief priests and Pharisees, "in parables, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.'" Now, I'm assuming that most of us don't know weddings like the one Jesus was alluding to here. In those days, there would've been no greater party imaginable than a marriage banquet for a king's son.

6:06I was trying to think of some sort of illustration of a time in which I experienced something like this, but I don't get invited to these types of parties. So what I could think of was maybe some of you will remember with me, Prince William and Kate Middleton getting married about 15 years ago or so. It was all over TV, all over the internet, every major network. Millions of people were watching live. But even that was only a daily event. It was one day. It doesn't compare to the royal wedding celebrations of ancient times. Just a few weeks ago, I was reading the Book of Esther to my kids, and it opens with King, I'm not going to say his name right, Ahasuerus.

6:49He's the king of the Persian Empire. He reigned all the way from Ethiopia to India, 127 provinces. And it says in Esther 1:4 that he gives this feast for his officials and servants. And at the feast, he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for 180 days, half a year. At the end, he hosts this final feast. It lasts seven days in the very courts of the palace for every person, great and small, in the entire capital of his empire, Susa. This is a wedding banquet. And I think Jesus wants us to imagine something like this, a king's wedding feast for his son.

7:31This is a multi-day feast with the best food and drink and entertainment and games. The king is trying to blow his guests away with the extent of his wealth and luxury and generosity. He wants to show off all that he is to as many as he can as he honors his son's marriage. And so with that motivation, in verse three, what does he do? He sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. And note there that the servants are sent out to call in those who were already invited to the wedding feast. So remember, there is no evite.com or punchbowl.com in this day and age where you can send out your save-the-dates digitally and get back your RSVPs.

8:18It doesn't exist. The king had to send out his servants once with the save-the-date, and then when the feast was finally actually ready, he would call the invited guests in. And so these invited guests have already been considering their participation. It's not as if this call to the banquet is the first time they're hearing of it and that it's interrupting their immediate plans and activities. They had time to prepare in advance, to put it on the calendar. But when the servants come and they say, "The feast is ready. Come," the guests would not come. Actually, in the original language, we get a little more nuance. It could be translated, "The guests did not want to come."

9:00This is not just that they were busy, they were in the middle of a project, or they were caring for family members. These invited guests have deliberately chosen to disregard the invitation of the king. And again, let me remind you, this is like no other party that you or I has ever experienced. This is as if a royal ruler, or you can think the President of the United States, invites you to freely partake in and receive all the delicacies and comforts of the most extravagant feast you can imagine. I don't care if it's seven days, you're probably taking vacation time for this. And not only because the food and drink will be delicious, but because how dare you refuse the invitation of a royal ruler like this.

9:44In fact, some commentators would argue that in a patron-client society like this one, attendance would have been virtually an obligation for those invited. To refuse was a deliberate insult to the king's honor, as if to say, "You are not my king." Now, the king could just shake the dust off his feet. He could move on from these people, but he doesn't give up yet. So look at verse four. The king sends out a second invitation. Again, he sent other servants saying, "Tell those who are invited, 'See? I've prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.'" So despite their initial rejection, now the king patiently and graciously tries to incentivize them. Oxen, fat calves.

10:34This is the best on the menu. The average person would have never had access to these delicacies. But how do they respond to this second invitation? Verse five, "They paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business." They prioritize other affairs in life over loyalty to their king. And for those listening to Jesus' parable, a response like this to the king would have sounded preposterous. And that was Jesus' point. He wants these Pharisees and these scribes to think that's unbelievable to respond that way. But Jesus escalates the situation even more in verse six. Look there.

11:20It says, "The rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully and killed them." So we're no longer talking about being rude or elusive. We are talking about guests who hate a king and they despise his reign. This type of brutality is senseless and it's dishonoring to the king. And Jesus draws out the gravity of the situation with the king's response. Verse seven says, "The king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city." This is not an overreaction from the king. These subjects, by refusing this particular invitation, have demonstrated their defiance to the rule of their king.

12:06Now, before we move on to the king's third invitation, I want to begin unpacking what this parable means, just so we are keeping up with the significance. The king in this parable is God. God the Father. His son is, of course, Jesus. The king's invitation to his son's wedding feast is God's gracious invitation to enter his kingdom. The wedding feast represents eternal life, where the true people of God come to enjoy God and commune with him forever, experiencing the fullness of his lavished provision. The original invitees are the people of Israel. These are the Jews. They are the ones who have already been called by the Father.

12:51As early as Genesis 12, this nation is called out by God to be his special people and whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed. They are his already called ones. As we get towards the end of the Old Testament, the prophets confirm this. Hosea 11, verse one, God says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son." Interestingly, Hosea 11, verse two describes how these already called ones respond when God continues to call them. Hosea 11, verse two says, "The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols." What a foreshadowing of this parable, where God sends out his servants to call in the already called ones and they refuse to come. In fact, the more he calls, the more they refuse.

13:48This is what we've been seeing in recent chapters of Matthew. The very people of God, his special and chosen people, the Israelites, they're refusing God's invitation to come and honor his son. And who are the servants? Well, similar to what we saw in our parable last week, they represent the prophets and the apostles who sought to point people to the Messiah and call them to repentance and faith in him. And we see two types of responses to these invitations. Some of the Israelites prioritize other things. They're distracted by the things of the world. They have business to attend to, crops to care for.

14:25They're apathetic to the invitation. And then other Israelites respond with violence. These, I think, are the religious. These are the Pharisees and the scribes, who do not think they need an invitation. We are already in the kingdom. And it is these religious people that respond with hostility to the preachers of God's kingdom. They will eventually kill Jesus, and they will even kill his apostolic spokesman. And then we have the king's response, the king's anger and destruction. What is that? This represents God's end time judgment on those who refuse his invitation to enter his kingdom and celebrate his son.

15:09Particularly, it is a condemnation of the Pharisees and chief priests, and they know he's talking about them. We saw this in the last chapter, and they are surely not loving this third parable. But then Jesus keeps adding fuel to the fire. So look at verses eight through 10. "Then the king said to his servants, 'The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.' And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests." So here the king declares that these original invited guests, the people of Israel, are not worthy of his invitation. And the king moves on from Israel and he sends out his servants to gather in the most unexpected guests, the folks from the street corners and the highways and the byways, as many as they can find.

16:06This is a universal invitation that extends even to those who up to this point in God's story have not been commonly associated with the kingdom. These are the Gentiles and the tax collectors and the prostitutes and the crippled and the lame and the unrighteous. Don't miss what Jesus says in verse eight. He says the original guests, the Israelites, were not worthy. And we need to ask, well what makes them worthy of entrance into the wedding feast, into the kingdom of God? Was it because they didn't do enough good deeds that they were unworthy? Was it because they were unrighteous? They didn't have enough moral virtue? They didn't righteously obey God's law?

16:51And we know this can't be the case because look at verse 10. It tells us that those who eventually come into the wedding hall are what? They are both good and bad, which means bad people entered the kingdom. Therefore, what makes someone unworthy of the kingdom is not their works. What makes someone unworthy of entrance into the kingdom is simply this, they reject the king's invitation. If entrance was dependent on good works, then certainly the second group of guests from the highway would have been equally, if not more unworthy than the first group. But instead, these vagabonds are gathered into the wedding hall. Why?

17:33Because they accepted the invitation. They respond to the king's grace. And here I say, note then the kindness and severity of God. Jesus' words in this parable are full of both judgment and grace. Judgment because he has turned his attention away from his chosen people, Israel, but lavish grace because he's inviting into his kingdom those who have no natural rite of passage. They don't have the right ethnic heritage. They do not have the right credit to their account. They're not righteous. And Paul and Barnabas make an almost identical claim when they preach to the Jews in Antioch at the end of Acts 13. It says there that when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and they began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying, "It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you Israelites.

18:35But since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles." So God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, is at this point in redemptive history broadening his invitation into the kingdom of heaven. It is not an exclusive VIP-only entrance. The king of the universe is beckoning all sinners of every stripe to partake in his Son's wedding feast for all eternity. He has sent his invite to all contacts, and it was not a mistake. He did not click the wrong button. The call to the gospel is not exclusive. Those of us standing in the highways and street corners with no credentials or relevant ethnic heritage are invited to his kingdom by his lavish grace alone.

19:26In fact, his grace is so lavish that later the Apostle Paul in Romans 11 will tell us that the stumbling of Israel, their rejection of the Messiah, was intended by God to open up the door of grace to the Gentiles. Then he goes on. For what purpose? So that in turn, the Jews would become jealous and so also be brought back into the kingdom. So even the Jews are not forever excluded from this extensive invitation. And so in light of this, I ask you, have you responded to God's gracious invitation to come into his everlasting heaven? Will you come to the wedding feast? And if you're hearing my voice and you're hearing the word of God this morning, you cannot say, "I never got an invite."

20:18There are many more that you know beyond these walls, those highway dwellers in your life and among the nations, who still need an invitation. And this could feel like a great place to end the parable. Many are invited. Many are invited and many are gathered into the wedding hall. This is wonderful. But Jesus has more to say, and the next verses actually take a surprising turn. So look with me at verses 11 through 13. It says, "But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless.

21:04Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'" This scene is a bit unsettling to us. Jesus moves from a comprehensive invitation to a critical inspection of each guest. The king comes into the wedding hall inspecting these guests who've been called in from the streets, and he finds one who has no wedding garment, no appropriate attire for such a feast as this, and the king kicks him out. And we want to say to the king, "King, you just invited these guys off the street. They are bums. How can you now accuse them of being improperly dressed for the occasion? Isn't this an unreasonable expectation?

21:56And does the punishment really fit the crime?" Well, clearly in this story, both the king and even the man seem to think that wearing a wedding garment is a reasonable expectation. So the king just assumes this man should have and could have shown up in a wedding garment. I'm not an expert on Jewish wedding attire. I'm not even an expert on modern 21st-century American wedding attire. But from my reading, it seems like the clothing expected at a wedding would have just been decent, clean, white clothes that most people could have come by. There are some scholars who would argue the wedding garments for the guests would have actually been lavish clothing provided by the king himself.

22:41Regardless, whether the man went down to the river, cleaned up his clothes, dried them out, or he found a new garment, or it was provided by the king, whatever reason, the king assumes this man had access to the right clothes. Some of you might know the scene from "Remember the Titans," where the strict football coach, Herman Boone, lays down his expectations for what the players will wear when they board the bus for training camp. He says, "You will wear a jacket, shirt, and tie. If you don't have one, buy one. If you can't afford one, then borrow one from your old man. If you don't have an old man, then find a bum, trade him for his." And Coach Boone's point is you can find a suit.

23:26There is no excuse to come dressed as a slob. And this is the king's reasonable expectation for his guests, even those off the streets. You can find clean wedding clothes. Interestingly, of all the guests invited from the street, only this man is singled out by the king. It's as if the rest seem to have found and put on the appropriate attire. But our text also hints that the man himself became aware that this was a reasonable expectation for the king. And why do I say that? Look at the end of verse 12. The man's called out and it says, "He was speechless." If the king's expectation here is unfair, we might expect to hear this man offer up an excuse. "My king, I'm a poor beggar.

24:14I'm wearing all that I have." Or, "You rushed us into this feast. I had no time to change." Or even, "My goat ate my wedding garment, at least." But he doesn't. He doesn't say any of this. He stands silent because he has no excuse. He has presumed upon the gracious invitation of the king, and he has insulted him by showing up in dirty garments. So who does this man represent? This man with no wedding garment is a person who superficially accepts the invitation to the kingdom of heaven, yet is not truly transformed by the grace of God. He does not truly understand the implications of the invitation.

24:58He has not truly reckoned with the holiness of God, his unworthiness to enter his perfect presence, and what has happened to make that possible. The man with no wedding garments responds to the invitation, but on his own terms. He struts into the wedding hall with his dirty street clothes on as if that is fitting attire. He's at the party. He's responded to the invitation, but his life discloses that he does not truly belong. One of our pastors said, "This is a wedding crasher." That's what he is. This person professes Christ, appears to be part of the church, tags along to all the events. But when his faith is inspected, the Lord will say, "Depart from me.

25:45I never knew you." When this person's true identity is divulged on the last day, and it will be, God will cast him into hell, damning him to eternal separation from his presence, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. And so some of us might be wondering, am I that man? Have I responded to God's invitation to enter heaven, but somehow I haven't come with the right attire? And here I want to draw out two things that this man failed to do and let these be a diagnostic for us. First, he failed to recognize his unworthiness to enter as he was. He failed to see that his street clothes were an offense to the king.

26:36He failed to see his sin and his need to deal with it. Just because we receive the invitation doesn't mean there are no requirements for entry. Jesus said in Matthew 5, if you remember back that far, "I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. You must be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect." There is a requirement to gain access to the wedding feast, and it is complete and perfect righteousness. Now, this is a major problem for all of us because we all fall dreadfully short of this standard. Romans 3:10 says, "No one is righteous, not even one." And we will not truly understand or appropriately respond to God's gracious invitation if we do not come to terms with how offensive our sin is to God.

27:37We can imagine this man strutting into the kingdom with his mud-stained clothes, coming up to the entrance and sort of trying to dust himself off, straighten himself up, completely unaware that that is utterly insufficient. It's as if he doesn't know what kind of party or whose party he's walking into. In the same way, when we receive this lavish invitation to heaven, we must not be ignorant of who the king is or what he requires of us or how short we fall. And so this failure to see his own unworthiness leads to a second way in which this man failed. He failed to put on clean garments. He failed to put on the righteousness fit for heaven.

28:28And so we wonder, where do we get these garments of righteousness? And we will be tempted to clean ourselves up to prove our worth through good deeds and obedience, but that will not cut it. Isaiah 64:6, "All our righteous deeds are like filthy rags." It will never be enough. Instead, Revelation 7:14 tells us how the church gets their white clothes for the wedding feast. It says, "The saints have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Jesus's red blood bleaches dirty robes. How does this work? 2 Corinthians 5:21 says it like this, perhaps one of my favorite gospel texts in scripture, "God made him who knew no sin," Jesus Christ, "to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God."

29:36Christ, the spotless Lamb of God, who never sinned, who walked perfectly in obedience and fulfilled the whole law for the entirety of his life, was condemned in our place, dying a criminal's death on the cross. And not only did he bear the wrath of God for our sin, but he credited to our accounts all of his righteousness. It is a righteousness not of our own doing. It is an alien righteousness, a foreign righteousness, and it is imputed to us. So the righteousness of Christ is the wedding garment. Those who truly accept the invitation into the banquet are those who put on his righteousness. How do we put it on? What store do I go to to get that garment?

30:25We put it on simply by faith. Philippians 3:9 says that we gain Christ and are found in Christ, not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. You can't come to the wedding feast without faith in Christ's death for your sins and his righteousness credited to your account. You can't just say, "I want to go to heaven," or, "I love God," or, "I'm a Christian," or, "I like these church people and their conservative stance and their ethical conduct." You must put your faith, your trust, your entire dependence on the perfectly righteous one, Jesus Christ, and his work on your behalf.

31:20And when you do this, when you put on Christ's righteousness, you also begin to produce your own righteous deeds. We get another wedding picture in Revelation 19:7-8. It says this, "Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure" for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. So the wedding garments also refer to the righteous deeds of the Christian that give evidence of a life truly changed by the gospel. Hebrews 12:14 says, "There is a holiness without which no one will see the Lord." The king will also inspect for the fruit of genuine faith.

32:20And of course, here I want to be careful not to say that our own righteous deeds gain us entry into heaven, for it is Christ's atoning work alone that makes us worthy. But what I also want to guard against is an invitation that says, "Come as you are, remain as you are." This is not the gospel to which we are called. The faith that justifies us also sanctifies us. We cannot have one without the other. Faith without works is no real faith. When the gracious invitation is truly received, it transforms the guest. And so I say to you, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. In closing, I want to speak to three different groups of people.

33:05First, there are some of you here this morning who have heard this word from Jesus, and you've never taken him up on his offer of salvation. You've not accepted the invitation to come to the wedding feast, and I just want to impress upon you that the stakes are high. They are higher than you think. Those who do not respond rightly to the invitation will receive what they deserve as rebellious subjects of the king, and that is eternal torment apart from the presence of God in hell. It is everlasting destruction without death. It is weeping and gnashing of teeth. This place is the absence of all that is good and right and beautiful.

33:51You would rather be anywhere else. You'd rather be in a Holocaust camp or a torture chamber. There is no suffering on earth that compares. But even more than the negative, there is a positive way in which the stakes are high. The offer to you, if you will have it, is everlasting joy and abundance of feasting in the presence of the perfect, all-powerful, ever-good God of the universe. It is an eternal and pleasure-loaded celebration of what Christ has accomplished for his bride, the church. I urge you, do not refuse this invitation. Consider the eternal ramifications and do not let pride, do not let other priorities keep you from coming to the king.

34:39Come now to the wedding feast. But there's another group of you in here this morning that I want to address. Some of you are hanging around the kingdom. You're here at church this morning, but you are like the man with no wedding garment. You've never seen your sin for what it is and repented. You've never felt or understood your need to depend fully on Christ alone for your standing before God. And my question for you again is, what will you wear to the wedding feast? You want to come? What will you wear? When God asks you what makes you worthy of entering his heaven, will you be speechless like this man with no wedding garment?

35:25Or will you just grasp at any explanation you can think of, my good works, my family, I go to church, I hang out with a Christian crowd. My prayer is that there will be no one in here that gets to the end of their life and stands before the King of the universe speechless. My prayer is that when he comes to inspect, we will each say, "I've got nothing to offer. I don't deserve to get in, but I'm clothed in the perfect righteousness of your Son. He died in my stead to satisfy your wrath, and he has credited his perfect worth to my account." That is the gospel. Repent and believe today. There's no other door into heaven.

36:09And this leads me to the last group that I'd like to address, and this could be most of us in the room. Those who have genuinely responded to this invitation. You have put on the wedding garment that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And my encouragement to you this morning is simply this, praise God again this morning for his glorious grace. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 says to the church in Corinth, and he says to all of us this morning "Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of heaven, and such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." Such were some of us, brothers and sisters. We were on the byways and the highways.

37:13We had no right to the wedding feast. We deserved not the glorious riches of heaven and eternal life with God, but he invited even us, even us, to enjoy all the lavishness of his grace. And let me remind you, if you're part of the feast, if you're going to the glorious wedding supper of the Lamb, it is not because of you. It is not because of you. Look how Jesus closes this parable. This is his simple explanation of the entire thing, verse 14, "For many are called, but few are chosen." Here in this pithy phrase, we again see the paradox of God's sovereignty and human responsibility. God genuinely and graciously invites all to respond to his invitation, and yet at the very same time, he sovereignly determines who will receive it.

38:13Now, to some, these words, "few are chosen," may feel unfair. But I pray if we can see them rightly, they are a sweet reminder that our salvation is entirely and utterly by his free grace. We bring nothing to the table. He has done it all. And if he has set his electing love on you, then you can be confident that he will bring you into the everlasting feast. He will have all the right guests at his party. He's put down the name tags. Yours is waiting for you. We have a gracious, generous, patient, and gloriously sovereign God. Amen? Amen. What will the feast be like that he throws for all eternity in honor of his Son and the bride for whom he died? We can only begin to imagine. Let's pray together.

39:11We greatly rejoice in you, O Lord. Our souls exult in you, for you have clothed us with the garments of salvation. You have covered us with robes of righteousness, and we are eager to come into your wedding feast and celebrate in your presence for all eternity the work you have done. And we will come with no fear of judgment, because we come dressed in our Lord Jesus. We praise you in his name. Amen. Amen.

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