Get Rid of Daily Excuses and Embrace Daily Fellowship!
Get Rid of Daily Excuses and Embrace Daily Fellowship!
Jesus is telling a story about a man who invited guests to his house and all of them had some excuse to come: I just bought a field, I just bought oxen, and I just got married. This day had been planned and on all their calendars. But all of them had time to find something else to do. So the man told his servants to go to all the gutters and backstreets to bring the outcasts of society. And his servants did. But Jesus was speaking specifically to a man and not the one who invited Him to his house. Jesus just told the host of this current gathering, “On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind.“ (Luke 14:13) So why did Jesus repeat Himself to this other man? And why did Jesus give these three specific reasons why they could not attend the banquet?
There was a point to Jesus being specific with this second man. He may have just missed the point and needed it repeated so that he could finally get it. Buy why the three specific examples? I think that maybe he had used these three examples to excuse himself from previous banquets with either the host or the synagogue on Saturday. Jesus to was challenging his devotion to the host of the current banquet by having these three reasons why he had missed three or more banquets. Or his devotion to God in honoring the sabbath and keeping it holy. I would like to bring you specific examples of laws that were broken by this man and the sabbath but I am only coming up with one.
”You are to labor six days but you must rest on the seventh day; you must even rest during plowing and harvesting times.“
”Do your work for six days but rest on the seventh day so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave as well as the foreign resident may be refreshed.“
If it was truly a Saturday then he was not allowed to try out his oxen. He would need to wait one day. There would be nothing wrong with going out to look at a field, but he could also wait one day and enjoy the fellowship of the banquet or the sabbath. I also don't see anything wrong with being newlywed and going to either of these occasions other than he would not be allowed to bring his new wife to the guy's night.
So what are our reasons for missing an evening of fellowship or resting on the day you have made a day of rest? People will make the argument that if you are not making church a priority on Sunday then you are teaching your kids that God is not a priority. I agree and disagree and the same time. We can make so much of the Church we forget the God of the church. Or we can make so much of the world’s priorities that we also forget The God who made the world. The Old Testament tells us that the nation of Israel had to gather as one three times a year with God and to take every opportunity to teach your kids about God. But I don't remember a command where God required them to meet every week.
”Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with a joyful and humble attitude, praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved.“
”Every day in the temple complex, and in various homes, they continued teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.“
”But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.“
Through work and family and church very few of us could get together daily, but that is how the early church grew, learned, and thrived.
God I ask that You will help us to see ways each and everyday to encourage any number of Your people daily whether through a text, a phone call, a personal visit, or any other way you seem fit. For too long Your church as neglected meeting together everyday. I ask that You restore daily fellowship and learning in the hearts and minds of Your church. In Jesus name!
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