(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. One of the greatest tactics of the enemy in our day is distraction. Distraction by politics, distraction by TV, distraction by handheld screens, distraction by social media, distraction by jobs, distraction by entertainment, distraction by hobbies, distraction by leisure, distraction by on and on and on in a land with so great many things, the list surely is endless.
From what have these things distracted us? We’ve become distracted from the table fellowship of Christ our Lord. Table fellowship can be understood in this way when I use the term, if you’re not familiar with it, table fellowship. Well, hopefully all of us at some point regularly belong to a certain table within a family.
Hopefully that is the case. That’s one type. It has been or maybe still is regular, where you regularly attend the table and gather around it with family.
Another type of table fellowship is the occasional or the irregular, tables to which we invite others from outside our homes or are ourselves invited to attend there, to gather around again a meal. The reason around gathering either of these types of tables is the same, is for people to spend time with people, with each other, a human interaction. Indeed, having a place at Christ’s table has endless delight and celebration awaiting us when we think of the marriage feast of the lamb in his kingdom, that it is awaiting us in the life of the world to come.
We have great delight and celebration there, most certainly, in all that will be for us after this short breath that we call life is passed. We hear much, we are promised much by what that shall be. We pray in every divine service that the Lord would gather us together from the ends of the earth to celebrate with all the faithful the marriage feast of the lamb in his kingdom, which has no end.
We have expected joy in the fact that the lamb himself, the very lamb of God, has invited us to that everlasting feast. For we expect much then, we have been promised much then, but what about now? Once there, the enemy will not be able to distract you, the enemy will not be able to tempt you, he will not be able to lure you away, he will not be able to hopefully bankrupt your faith as he does here. Since he cannot do it there, then his only shot at you is here.
That is why his focus is here, so much upon you, because belonging to Christ’s table has implications not only for the life of the world to come, but it has implications in the present, in this life. When we were under our parents’ roofs, when we belonged to and were invited regularly to eat at their table, which it was theirs, God gave them that table to tend to their needs and yours, we regularly went at their invitation, and thus our identity was rooted in this great and regular invitation. As we visited relatives’ tables, friends’ tables, we were wise to remember the table manners that we learned that we were to have at all tables, manners that we were taught at our home tables, out of the table fellowship that was established.
And how that everywhere we went we knew, we remembered to whose table we belonged, at whose table we were regularly provided for, we remember whose table we were loved at, whose table we were guided by, whose table we loved being a part of. That is table fellowship, the very identity created for us as we gathered around. Now, if you’ve never had that, you now have it in Christ.
You now have it at a greater measure that all earthly tables merely reflect that the greater table, that table which is yet to come, is the table to which you belong now. Though you may not currently have the temporal joy that our Father gives to earthly tables, earthly tables used aright and regularly, still upon the earth you come to a greater table. Blessed is the man who is invited to and regularly eats at the Lord’s table.
Most certainly you are blessed if you have a place prepared for you in the coming kingdom. Yet you cannot be distracted from the truth that that kingdom has come to you when your Heavenly Father gave you His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace you believe His Holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity. This is most certainly true.
Leading a godly life is more than morality. It is more than just doing good. A godly life is that which is encompassed in all that God teaches us, all that He says, all that He does for us and in us, in calling us to feast regularly upon His grace and even, yes, upon His beloved Son’s own body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins.
A godly life indeed is one that lives by God’s standards. It is moral, upright, righteous, while it even more rejoices in His grace and mercy in the forgiveness of sins that He bestows. A godly life is one in which you stand firm against the distracting attacks of the enemy and instead invest in things and instead invest in people, in ways that make the most of the limited time that you have here.
Here. A godly life is one, and we must return to this habit, a godly life is one in which we daily sit down at table and eat together, with each other, without phones, without TV, without noise, without the distractions that take us from each other and from the good gifts that God sits down right in front of us, not only on the dinner table but opposite it, realizing together that God is yet again giving us daily bread and together we give thanks to Him as we slow down, as we enjoy a blessed meal and the blessings of loved ones with which to share it. If you live with other people, it is imperative that you make time for this to happen daily, if not multiple times a day.
If you live alone, then look for opportunities to clear off your table and invite someone from church for a meal, someone in your extended family over for a meal, someone from your neighborhood to come and eat a meal with you and celebrate together, to tell them of the goodness of the Lord that He provides both now and forever, that He gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, yes, even to all evil people, but we pray that He would lead us to realize this and receive our daily bread with thanksgiving, because the biggest part that is already around you of the kingdom of the eternal kingdom of God that is to come, the biggest part of that that is already here are the people, not the things, not the circumstances, not all of this that seems to be able to distract us so easily. What is enduring are the very people which our God has died for, the ones redeemed and made to be eternally living in Him. Distraction from each other and from our fellowship in Christ’s table means distraction from the table from the Savior to whose table you are invited, distraction from the eternal life fed regularly to you there, distraction from the everlasting fellowship at a table that shall not perish, at a table that shall not fail to provide for you in body and soul until life everlasting.
So how does this invitation come to you? By your works, by your morality, what does the third article say? I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. What does this mean? This means that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit, Christ’s own Spirit, the Spirit that He sends forth out to the four corners of the earth to draw people to Himself, that Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way, He calls, gathers, enlightens the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.
This is how the invitation comes, is sent out to you by the word, by the Spirit Himself calling you to come, to come to the table where your master is head, your good master, your sacrificial master, your eternal Lord and giver of life master. It is good to consider ourselves numbered among His everlasting guests, to have our honorable places reserved for any place at Jesus’s table, even the lowliest, the lowest, even that place as a cup running over with honor, unlike any other place. Consider the goodness of the Lord toward those blessed to be at His table, the table at which Christ is head yields its fruit in its due season and its leaf never withers.
In all that it does, it prospers as only the Almighty can bring about where He is head. On this Sabbath, on the day of rest in Luke 14, where we hear the Lord going to eat, reclining at table, what does He do? He takes charge. He controls what is said, what is believed He puts out to be grasped.
He takes charge of the banquet to show all the people that He is indeed the Lord of Sabbath, that is, the Lord of rest. He shows that though many a sorrow may tarry for the night, that joy comes in Him, the bright and morning star. Though we appear to be in steady decline, though this seem not to be true in this life, though we are ill, ridden with disease, always confronting death that is looming, the truth is in this reality of all eternity considered that Christ, the head of our table, has won for us.
We are constantly getting closer to the heavenly banquet, second by second by second. And since this is true, we are actually in a movement from sickness to healing, eternal healing. Though it may not come here, it is promised most certainly to come.
For every believer in the church, both militant and in the church triumphant, in having a place at Christ’s table where we feast on life Himself, each new day is always better than the one before, no matter what happens here. If we are ever moving closer and closer to that eternal day of rest, then every single day between now and here is not one in which we are in decline, but one in which it is getting better by the second. If you are a guest at the Savior’s table, then this is a most certain truth by which we endure in all things here, by the faith that He gives and sustains at His table, the gift that He sustains by His Word and His Spirit bestowed upon you in those holy waters of baptism.
We endure in all things here by faith, in faith in the very One who calls us to His eternal table, a table that is set most certainly before us then. And yet this good and gracious Savior comes and sets it before you again today. Thanks be to God, in Jesus’ name.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)
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