Sell the Master

A few weeks ago when I was at camp I got to teach a lesson on the Banquet in relation to the marriage between Christ and the Church. I had a hard time figuring out what I was going to say about a marriage banquet to about 20-30 high school boys, but eventually it came to me.

Look at Matthew 22.1-14.

That was our text for the week, and that's what I looked at for my lesson. In the parable this is what happens.

A master is having a feast and invites all his friends via a servant. They all decline because they have "better things to do."
The servant comes back, tells the master that, he gets mad and sends the servant out to everyone else, all those who weren't his friend. And the servant goes.
The house gets packed with everyone else. The homeless, the drunks, the poor, the needy, the people you just don't want around.

And here's what I got.

God is our master, we are the servant, and the lost are the people we invite.
We go to those that think they have God, and we present the true Gospel to them but they blow us off because "Oh we got it already." (Reminds me of a time I was holding a Bible study at KCU, a guy in my section walks through and I ask if he wants to join to which he replies, "No I've had my fill of Jesus today.")
So God passed on his ministry to the masses, the ones that no one wanted to deal with because they matter too.
In the parable the servants are selling something, they're selling the feast. "Oh yeah there's gonna be all this awesome food, and good drinks, and a huge room for everyone to fit, with music, dancing, and it's gonna be an awesome time!"
Except the servants aren't selling just the party.

They're selling the Master. "He's rich, he pulled out all the stops, this is going to be off the hook because our Master put it all together!" And they continue to talk up the master and his greatness.

We're taking to gospel to the world, to bring them to the best party ever. And we're selling the one that sent us, we're selling God to them. He is the party, he is the feast, he is everything. He's the True Bread, the Living Water, "Taste and see the the LORD is good!" (Psalm 34).

We are telling the world of God and his wondrous works. In order to do that properly we have to know him in a highly personal and close way.

Think about Acts 19 and the Sons of Sceva. These are good Jewish boys, not followers of Christ, and they're going around trying to cast out demons. Except they're trying to do it in the name of Jesus. But they don't know Jesus. So it's, "I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims!" or "I command you by this person that I heard of from this one guy one time!" Know how the story ends? The demon says, "Jesus I know and Paul I heard of, who are you?" then the 7 Sons of Sceva get "mastered" (possibly dominated like my cat does with his stuffed bear) and they run out of the house naked.

They were trying to present a Jesus they didn't know, and it backfired on them. I know a woman who tries to evangelize but she doesn't truly know who God or Christ is because she just recites what her priest tells her to.

The sons of Sceva and that woman don't know the master or the feast so they can't sell them properly without getting torn to shreds by people.

This means only one thing: Know what you're selling. We're all called to witness and testify about God. But we can only do that properly by knowing God, knowing what he has to offer, knowing what he can give others. And we can only know that by partaking in it, by tasting and seeing that he is good. Then we can go to others and say, "I've tried it, I've tasted and I've seen that God is good. He has so much to offer you. Come join the party."

How we do this is through prayer, fasting, getting into the word, and opening our lives to God and what he can do. So go out, see what God can do in our life, and let him. Learn who he is, and tell the world of what he has to offer. Sell the Master.