Matthew 22:1-14

 ¹ Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.    ⁴ “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
   ⁵ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
   ⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹ So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
   ¹¹ “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ¹² He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.
   ¹³ “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
   ¹⁴ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Materials:  Invitation

Message:  Good Morning!  How are you all today?  Well, I'm glad you are here.  I wanted to get your help with something.  Do any of you know what this is?  (Hold up invitation)  that's right, it is an invitation.  I haven't looked inside yet, but I don't want to go to whatever it is, so I was wondering if you could help me come up with some excuses I could give to get out of it.  (let the kids help, but add to their answers as needed.)  I could say that I am going to be busy, or that I have a tummy ache, or that I will be out of town.  Thanks--those are good ideas.  But I guess I need to look at the invitation to see who I need to tell that I can't go. 

let's see.  First, it says that there will be lots of people there that I know.  That doesn't sound too bad does it?  Then it says that there will be singing and music.  I like that--don't you?  And it says it is going to be on Sunday, October 9th.  Hey that's today.  And it says at 11:00--we're just a little past that now.  And it says that it will be at our church.  Hmmm.  Guess what, this thing I was trying to get out of -I'm already here.  And you know what else this says?  It says that God has invited me here.  I wonder what I was thinking by wanting to get out of this.

Do you know that God has invited me and you and all of these other people here--not only to sing and pray and worship each week, but also to go out and share His love with others.  We wouldn't want to get out of that would we?  That would be like missing God's party.


Each Sunday when you come here, it is like coming to God's party.  And each day when we share God's love with each other, that's like being part of God's party too!


Let's say a prayer about that.  Repeat after me:
Dear God,
Thank you for inviting us into your love.  Help us show others that they are invited into your love too.
Amen