Stanwich Church
To Know Christ and Make Him Known
Stanwich Church
The Table We’re Heading Toward
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Welcome to the Table explores the radical hospitality at the heart of the Christian faith through the lens of two tables; the Lord's Table and the ordinary hospitality table of home and neighborhood. Beginning with God himself as the original pursuing host, the series moves through the covenant welcome of Mephibosheth, the table-fellowship scandal of Jesus, the contrast between cold religion and lavish grace in Simon's dinner, and the multiplying power of the early church's daily breaking of bread, eventually culminating in the eschatological feast of Revelation, where the entire arc of redemption ends at a table.
The driving conviction throughout is simple: every hospitality table is a rehearsal for the Lord's Table, and the Lord's Table sends us back to our hospitality tables with new purpose. As such, building an invitational culture is not a church growth strategy, it is a theological imperative rooted in the very character of God.
Thank you for listening to an audio resource from Stanwich Church, located in Greenwich in Stanford, Connecticut. The vision of Stanwich Church is to know Christ and make him known.
SPEAKER_01The Old Testament lesson for today is from Isaiah chapter 25, verses 6 through 9. This can be found on page 696 of your Pew Bible. Our scripture readings for today describe a future feast prepared by the Lord for all people who accept the invitation, extended by grace to participate in his joy and salvation. A reading from Isaiah chapter 25, beginning with verse 6, with the sixth verse. On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. And the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth. For the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, Behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out, Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him 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. And the angel said to me, Write this. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God. May God add his blessing to the reading of his holy word.
SPEAKER_02One of the privileges of being a pastor is I get to celebrate some of your most important days. I'm coming up to fall season, and I am going to be officiating at three weddings of Stanwich people. I've already done two this summer, and we're filling up for next summer. It's kind of crazy. But I want to show you a photo of one of my favorite weddings. That is one handsome guy. You can tell that he lived in the Tom Sellick Magnum P.I days. Because that's what we all did with our hair back then. And it also tells you that if you hang on to your hairstyle and your clothes long enough, they'll come back in style. Because that mustache is around a lot today. After that wedding, there's another one that's really special to me. This is my daughter Linnea. It's the last wedding that I did here at Stanwich before leaving from Chuck 1.0. And uh we knew we were leaving. It was July. It was going to be out of the house in a couple weeks. What furniture we could give to them they were going to take across to California. A lot of emotional experiences. I walked Linnea down the aisle. I guess it shows that some guys become finer wine over time. Come on, Gelani, that was pretty good. But got up to here, Pastor Nathan introduced the whole process. He put the stole on me, and then I stepped in to officiate the wedding. First thing that they had in their wedding was a worship song that they chose called Reckless Love. And it goes like this: Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me. You have been so, so good to me. Second part, before I took a breath, you breathed over me. You are so so good to me. We only got into about three words in that praise song, and I just started weeping. You know, the kind where you need a towel, there's snot running down your face. I'm taking my glasses off and cleaning them multiple times. And my youngest son, Jordan, is right here, is one of the groomsmen, and he goes, Dad, you better get it together. Joy. There's probably no greater joy than a wedding celebration. I've told all three of these couples this fall, enjoy this day. It's the only day in your life where everybody will be happy for you in the room. Except if there's some exes in there. You gotta watch out for those that you invite. We're in our table series where we've been celebrating two things this summer. The first is this God sets a table and he's calling us in hospitality or something like that, to come to the table. He wants us to be there. And then he turns around and he hands to us as his sons and daughters all the invitations to take out to others. Because there's a wedding feast that's going to be greater than any wedding feast that we've experienced to this day. It's the marriage feast of the Lamb. So let's go to Revelation 19 and draw a few principles from it from the text and then give some application to us that will help us in our own walks with the Lord. Revelation chapter 19, you heard it read. Now, this is the Revelation to John. Or if you have an older Bible, it says the apocalypse given to John. Now we heard the word apocalypse. We think of a sci-fi thriller with all kinds of monsters and beasts. But if you read Revelation closely, you can get there. Because there's bulls and there's dragons and there's beasts. There's an imagination of everything that's going around. But apocalypse simply means the unveiling. It's the unveiling of what is to come. I had Isaiah read for you first because really revelation is not first about looking forward. Revelation is about looking backward. You need to understand the Hebrew scriptures to understand what's going on in Revelation. Because there's scripture after scripture that's being fulfilled. We sang it today, or I heard it, something about promise. Did you sing the word promise? Or was that in Mike uh John's prayer?
unknownShout to the Lord.
SPEAKER_02Shout to the Lord. What's the line? Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. Revelation is about fulfilling all these promises that God has been giving to his people through the centuries. The danger in reading revolution is to turn it into somewhat of a hermeneutical crystal ball that you'll be able to figure out the day Jesus is coming back. People have been trying that for a long time and they're dead. We're still waiting for Jesus to come back. But this is an unveiling to a group of people who were in trouble. I'm going to remind you of this regularly at Stanwood's Church. It's hard for us to read the Bible today because of our level of comfort. The early church was in trouble for their faith. The first four centuries, they had no power whatsoever. Actually, the church started going downhill the minute we were authorized by Constantine. We had more spiritual authority when we had less power. And for people that are in trouble, when you hear that Jesus is still on the throne, you kind of go, because your life doesn't feel like Jesus is on the throne. So this is what's given to them. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out. You can't help but see when you read through Revelation all of this heavenly light show. There's lightning, there's bolts of thunder, there's crying out, there's loud worship. When I was a young pastor, I was part of the resistance movement against praise music. I thought only hymns and quietness were holy. I was stuck on one verse, be still and know that I am God. It doesn't say be silent and know that I'm God. Be still is a state of peace, not about noise. And then I heard this preacher say this if you don't like loud worship, you're not gonna like heaven very much. And I gave up the resistance and started coming in. So I love loud worship. I love moments of quietness when we just still ourselves. But all of those are precious places of meeting God. But this is one of those exalting places, and it begins, hallelujah. This word is a borrowed Hebrew word, halal, which is praise, and Yah, which is short for Yahweh. Praise Yahweh. It makes us think of the last five Psalms of the Psalter, 146 to 150, where it begins with hallelujah, and it ends with hallelujah. It's a call to our vocation for life, we're to bring praise to God. Everything we do is a place for praise. Do you know the word hallelujah only occurs four times in the New Testament? That was surprising for me when I found that. They're all four in this chapter. In getting preparation for what's about to happen. For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns, let us rejoice and exalt and give him glory. Giving God glory is everything. We sang that other song, every chance I'll get, I'll bless your name. People say to me, Why do you always say bless the Lord? Because every chance I get, I'll bless his name. I want everything of my life from the mundane, which doesn't seem very spiritual, to the highest spiritual experience to be a reflection of the glory of God. Because that's why I was created. That's why you were created. You know what the Westminster Catechism says. This, what is the chief end of man and woman? Oh, please. You know it. What is the chief end of man and woman? Wow. Are there any Michigan fans in here? You weren't that quiet last night, were you? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That's not something we simply wait for then, but that's something that I'm doing right now. I'm in the process of this anthem and this song and this echo of heaven. See, most of Scripture, as I'm reading it now, has this one illusion that keeps coming: the meeting of heaven and earth. And when God sets a table, it's the meeting place of heaven and earth, where we get to experience the fullness of God. And then here's the climax of this glorious moment. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine liven, bright and pure. Katie already let the cat out of the bag. I'm not sure what that phrase means, but she let the cat out of the bag. That's the bride is us, the church. We cooperate with the Holy Spirit in preparing for this great feast when he, the groom, is going to unite us as one in him forever. What's powerful about the language here, it says it was granted her to be clothed. This is not something we do in our own effort. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus operating through us to get us ready for that glorious day. It's an amazing gift. Now, to understand what's going on here, you need to really understand a Jewish wedding. There are three stages to the Jewish wedding. The first is the betrothal or the engagement. It was as significant as the marriage itself. We might, in an engagement, think, you know what, this isn't going to work. I'm going to back out of it. That didn't happen in the biblical world. When you made the engagement, you were in, and the way you did that is there may have been a wheat harvest fest, and the women would come out and dance, and a guy would go, Yeah, I kind of like that one over there. Dad, let's figure out what we're going to do. And you go to the bride's father and you negotiate a bride price. Now that's not something we think about. Pretty much the bride pace falls on the father of the bride today. Right? Usually the one that pays. But then the groom's family paid for the bride. And negotiation would be could be very intense. When we lived in Mali, it's still an arranged marriage culture. I would have men all the time ask me if they could negotiate for my daughter Linnea. And I found it as a great opportunity to create a laugh, and I would say, sure, I'd be glad to do that. That'd be a hundred camels, a hundred cows, a hundred sheep, a hundred goats, five Mercedes, and three houses. That way I didn't have to tell them no. They could just tell me no. But that whole negotiation was important because the price said something. Then was up to a year of preparation. The bride would prepare herself. This is why you have this image to the fine linen and the cloth. It's kind of like a year of spa. Think of Queen Esther when she's being prepared to go to the king. A whole year of spa. You didn't know when that time was going to be up. You remember the parable Jesus tells of the ten virgins? They need to keep their lamps lit because you don't know the time in which the coming. But the male, he was preparing a place for his bride. If his family had a house and there was enough room, they would build another room on that for her. If not, he would get another place, and he would spend the whole year preparing that house for her to come join. And then when the time came, this is the third part of the wedding, he would send his entourage to get the bride, and she would come and stay in that room that he had prepared. Once she was there, he would come up to the door and he would knock. And she would say, What have you paid for the bride price? He would wait a while and he would knock one more time. Is my bride in there? And she would open the door. And that would be the beginning of a feast that would last for seven to fourteen days. Of fine wine and choice food is stated in the Isaiah passage, of celebrating the union of these two coming together. What's the so what of this passage? It's found in the actions of Jesus. If you remember when he was with his disciples on that last couple days before going to the cross, he says, I'm going to prepare a place for you. And when I come back, I will find you. And you will be with me forever. And at the beginning of Revelation, it says this behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone will open the door, I will come in and I will sup. I will feast with them forever. Jesus is standing at the door today, and he's saying, You are welcome to open the door to me. If you've never opened the door to Jesus, today is the day to open the door. He is the ultimate host and is waiting to meet us at this table. But there's a now what of this passage. The now what is found in the verse that we didn't get to at the end of the passage. It says this. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb. You've all been invited. You've heard the invitation. But what about the people in our lives that don't know they're invited to this table? What about the ones that we work next to or we go to school with or who are in our neighborhood who don't know that there is a God waiting to sup with them? You know, a recent Barna study that was polling people that are unchurched. I think it was around 75% of the people who are unchurched said they would go to church if somebody would simply invite them. There are people out there that don't know they're invited to the greatest feast ever. Why would I hide that invitation? Over the course of this series, I've been reminded of different tables that I've sat at. I've had the privilege of eating in multiple places around the world. Whether it was in a bowl, around a bowl in Africa with four of us and scooping the food with our hands and eating it and belching really loud to appreciate the cook who had done it. I remember the first time that Ingrid and I had paella together. We were celebrating an anniversary in France. We didn't have a car. Anasi was about 45 minutes away from Albertville, so we took a train six hours to Anasi so we could have an anniversary dinner together. And we went into this little restaurant. The guy's wife was Italian, he was Spanish, and he sat at our table the whole night to enjoy the meal with us. We were the only people in the restaurant. I remember when a family here at uh Stanwich were part of the Societe Française took me to one of their celebrations, and there were seven courses perfectly paired with every kind of wine that you could want. That's an Uber ride home night. I mean, I could just go over, my mouth is watering right now. I mean, think of what it says in Isaiah: a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, a rich food full of morrow. But that banquet we're going to be at is going to be far more greater than that. I'm reminded of the first full meal that I had with a French family in Alberville. It was an evening like that. We started at eight o'clock and ended at one in the morning. Never left the table. But the celebration wasn't just about the food. They actually brought out some spirits that had been in the family since the 1930s. This is how special the event was for us. And we went through course after course, but we were there to celebrate Toma. Because Toma was their older son. And at a baptism service, I watched while he looked longingly at his brother Mark get baptized. And I could see a hollowness in his life. And I said, Tomas, can we get together? And I simply invited Tomas to be a part of God's family. And Tomas said, Yes. See, that celebration had foo, but the best part of the celebration was Tomas was now invited to the table. And a part of what God's doing. Who in your life is waiting to be invited to your table? And then maybe even a step beyond to an alpha table. God's the great inviter. As his children, we get the privilege of being inviters as well. Amen.
SPEAKER_00To learn more about the mission and vision of Stanwich Church and how you can get involved, please visit Stanwichchurch.org.