I Am With You At the Table | I AM... The God Who Gets Close | Menlo Church Live Stream

See, the enemy of this table isn't the person that doesn't feel like they're worthy to sit at it. It's the person who's been sitting at it long enough that they've started deciding who else gets to be here because they have been tricked into thinking it's theirs to decide it in the first place. You know what I keep coming back to in this story? Nobody around this table actually deserved to be at it. Not in the way that we would think about it. Judas has already gone on the inside. Peter is about to blow up on the outside. The rest of them are mid argument about their own ratings while Jesus is hours away from the cross. This table, it wasn't a table of the worthy. It was a table of the wounded, the wanted, and the waiting. [00:43:16] (43 seconds)  #TableOfTheWounded

Jesus doesn't wait for Peter to fail before he offers him forgiveness. He prays for him before he fails. Jesus says this, I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. Past tense, already completed. Before the moment that he knew that Peter would fall short over and over and over again in his hour of greatest need, Jesus has already prayed for him to the father. With full knowledge of what's coming, he makes space for Peter at the table. He invites him, has a place for him. That's not just a nice thought about Peter. [00:36:09] (36 seconds)  #PrayedBeforeTheFall

That's the thing about being close to grace that we don't often talk about. Being near the table doesn't mean that you let it change you. Being at the table doesn't mean that God knows you or that you know him. You can be in the room and still miss the point. You can be in the room but oriented away from the person who invited you to the table. You can receive the bread and the cup of communion and still be clutching something else in your life that feels more important that you're unwilling to give up if the trade is this for him. [00:29:54] (34 seconds)  #PresentButMissing

That your worst moment does not disqualify you from the invitation from God to his table. That your private betrayal, the sin that you're holding, the secret no nobody knows about, they do not revoke your invitation. Nothing can. Judah's problem wasn't that he, came to the table. His problem was that he came to the table more interested in taking than receiving, and there's a big difference. Jesus, he he keeps setting the table anyway. He keeps inviting people anyway. I don't think that Jesus, as this meal started, was like checking credentials as people walked in the door. I think he was hugging his friends and welcoming them to the table that he had prepared for them. [00:32:03] (42 seconds)  #YourPastDoesntDisqualify

This wasn't out of obligation. This wasn't out of duty. This was delight. This was his greatest longing. He set the table. He sent the invitations. He showed up for the big meal, for the people, and he's still showing up for you. With something that looks a lot like desire, that he really longs to be in relationship with us. I hope that you've experienced a room with someone that really does long to be connected with you, someone who loves the people who are walking in and you feel it instantly. Jesus, he set this table for that very reason. [00:25:59] (39 seconds)  #TableOfDelight

The night before everything falls apart at the end of Jesus' earthly ministry, well, it's coming together at the very same time. If you're unfamiliar, this day that took place around a table, this isn't quite historically accurate, but you get the idea. A table like this, it happened in an event called Passover. It was a holiday that they celebrated every year, and Jesus had gathered his closest friends to have his final meal before he would be arrested, falsely accused, wrongly convicted, brutally executed, all for you and me. [00:23:27] (36 seconds)  #LastSupperForYou

Imagine if once a month Carol walked into that conference room to set it up for us, and instead of preparing it for everyone, she decided, to make it nicer for the elders that she liked more or felt were more qualified. And then the places that she put people were based on the spiritual seniority that she felt they deserved. Imagine if she left certain places empty because she decided that there were just people who hadn't earned the full Carol treatment yet. That might sound wild, but that's exactly what we do when we start policing who belongs at Jesus' table. When we use our years of faithfulness as a measuring stick instead of a gift. When we confuse having a seat with owning the room. [00:42:34] (42 seconds)  #DontPoliceTheTable

Jesus doesn't shame them. He reframes the whole thing. Says, but not so with you, rather let the greatness among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves. And then he does this thing that only Jesus could do. He honors them in the middle of correcting them. He says, you are those who have stayed with me in my trials. He sees their faithfulness. And instead of minimizing it, he elevates it. But he refuses to let them use it as a weapon. Because this table, it was never designed to produce a hierarchy. It was designed to produce a family. Families, they don't rank each other. They they pull up chairs. They they welcome one another in closer relationship. [00:41:46] (48 seconds)  #GreatnessIsService

Because this is what entitlement does to a person in the place of grace. When you forget that your seat was a gift, you start treating it like a trophy. And when you treat grace like a trophy, you start looking around the room. You start noticing who else is there. You start wondering why certain people seem to be comfortable at the table when they certainly and clearly haven't earned it. You start using your proximity to Jesus as a measuring stick, proof of your status, your spiritual seniority, your right to have a say in who belongs and where they should be in the order to earn the status in the kingdom. [00:40:25] (39 seconds)  #GraceNotTrophy

Think about what Carol does before a single elder walks into that conference room once a month. She's already been there. She's already prepared it. She didn't wait to see who would show up. She didn't decide how much effort they deserve. She prepared the room for people who hadn't arrived yet. That's what Jesus does with Peter. That's what Jesus does with you. Your seat at this table has never been in jeopardy, and it's never been connected to how strong you are. It's about who set the table. It's about who makes the invitations. [00:37:55] (33 seconds)  #PreparedForYou

We spend so much time and energy trying to become the kind of person who deserves a seat at a table like this that we miss the whole point of why this table exists. The table wasn't set because Jesus surveyed the room and decided that his disciples finally were worthy of this kind of treatment. The table was set because Jesus loved the room, all of it, everybody around that table, the betrayer, the guy who was bragging, and the ones who were bickering and everything in between. There's a reason that he broke bread with all of them. There's a reason the cup went to every hand because the invitation was never conditional on the response of the invited. [00:44:03] (39 seconds)  #InvitationNotCondition

He offered himself fully, even to someone who was about to betray him. That should make us feel something, something that we can't quite find a neat and tidy place for in our own life, something that in this moment, if we really let it feel, it goes from not just theology but to something personal. You realize that the only thing standing between you and maybe a closer seat at this table to Jesus is the story you're telling yourself in your own mind of whether or not you belong here or whether you don't. [00:44:42] (30 seconds)  #StoriesKeepYouAway

It's a practice. We can all do it. It's a decision to make before anyone shows up when it's just you, an empty room, and a table, and a question about what kind of space you wanna create for another human being created in the image of God. Proximity is a spiritual discipline. You learn to receive grace as you extend it. You learn what it means to be wanted at a table by pulling a chair out for someone who didn't expect it. The world does not need more people performing greatness or wondering where they measure up. It needs more people preparing tables. [00:48:49] (37 seconds)  #PrepareMoreTables

This week, I want you to set a table for somebody else in your life, a real meal, a coffee, a a seat next to you somewhere, somewhere with someone that maybe you've been keeping a careful distance with because you've been waiting for them to clean their life up before you let them into yours. Someone maybe who has no idea that you've been thinking about them or having imaginary conversations about them without them for months. Do what Carol does. Think about them before they arrive. Prepare with their specific presence in mind. Make the room say, I wanted you here before you even say a single word. [00:48:07] (38 seconds)  #SetATableForSomeone

That's an encouragement for every single one of us. Every single one of us in any room that's thinking about this or processing our own failure at some point or at some area in our life where we've promised ourselves or we've promised other people that we wouldn't fall short, but we did. Every person who was absolutely certain that they were stronger than what they were up against, and it turned out to be that they weren't so strong. And maybe maybe they thought they could do it on their own and they realized they couldn't. See, Jesus, he has already prayed for you. [00:36:46] (31 seconds)  #PrayedForYou

He's there with 12 of his closest friends who have spent three years with him every single day. They've seen things that nobody else has seen. They've heard things that nobody else has heard. And honestly, they still don't fully understand what they're a part of. How could they have? He had arranged this meal. Luke tells us in his biography of Jesus' life and ministry that Jesus had sent people ahead and orchestrated and prepared this room for this day. This was not spontaneous. He wanted this. [00:24:03] (29 seconds)  #HePlannedTheMeal

Whatever thing you've fallen short of, whatever area you, right now, today, this week, in this season, haven't measured up for, Jesus has already prayed for you. He's already extended grace to you. It doesn't disqualify you. Before you even knew you were going to fail, Jesus knew the grace came first. Another passage in the New Testament says that before the foundations of the world, before any of this even started, God knew what you needed, and he knew the sacrifice that would be required to make relationship right again, and he was willing to carry out that plan. That's what we see around this table. Jesus has already made it possible. [00:37:16] (38 seconds)  #GraceCameFirst

Now I know what we wanna do with Judas because I wanna do the same thing. We wanna turn Judas into the villain because if Judas is the villain, then maybe we get to be the hero. We wanna look at Judas from a safe distance because if we look at him from a safe distance, we get to look at the parts of us that look like his from a safe distance. We think I would never. But I think I think Jesus puts Judas at the table on purpose. I think he wants to to see something that is more complicated than contempt, something that is more easily disguised than disgust. [00:28:33] (34 seconds)  #JudasWasInvited

See, think a lot of us, we live in this seat. You've been following Jesus long enough that you've started to miss the idea that your internal frailty is growing because it's easy to hide with your external faithfulness. We've been at this table long enough that we've started to feel like we belong here because of us, because of our track record, because of what we've done, because of our spiritual resume, our consistency, our years of showing up. And somewhere in that drift, the table of grace becomes a trophy of grit. It's a slow leak. It doesn't happen overnight. You don't even notice it at first. [00:34:55] (40 seconds)  #BewareSpiritualEntitlement

Peter's problem wasn't that he wasn't in love with Jesus. Peter's problem is that he's in love with his version of love. He's in love with his version of Jesus. He's more interested in performing loyalty than receiving grace. He's decided that it's his work, his effort, his vision. He's built an image and an identity around just a handful of words. He's the rock. He's the one who shows up. He never fails. He never falters. And what he doesn't realize is that to project that on the outside, his faith on the inside has gotten very frail. [00:34:25] (29 seconds)  #PerformanceNotGrace

That's the thing about being close to grace that we don't often talk about. Being near the table doesn't mean that you let it change you. Being at the table doesn't mean that God knows you or that you know him. You can be in the room and still miss the point. You can be in the room but oriented away from the person who invited you to the table. You can receive the bread and the cup of communion and still be clutching something else in your life that feels more important that you're unwilling to give up if the trade is this for him. See, he decided that he was holding something that was worth more. [00:29:53] (39 seconds)