You are here, an invited guest, because you are a friend of God. This great banquet is a banquet with assigned seating. There are place cards at every seat. You are invited. You are welcome.
Now the New Testament is filled with warnings about those who forge their own place cards, and counterfeit their invitations. That is a grim reality, and there are people who are bound hand and foot in order to be pitched out of the wedding banquet. But we are convinced of better things in your case. You are here because you have come in genuine evangelical faith.
I said that you are here as a friend of God, and so I want to emphasize that—unlike what we sometimes are—God is no piecemeal friend. When you have a true friend in this world, you know what it is like. You do not just have a warm place in his heart. If he is your real friend, then all that he has is your friend also. His house is your friend, his guest room is your friend, his checkbook is your friend, his weapons are your friend. If he is your friend, then all that he has comes with him.
God is that kind of friend. Now—you are here, as I said, because you are a friend of God. This means that the Table set before you is a true encouragement. You are a friend of God. That means that all of Christ is here. This is not some of Jesus.
He does not know how to give grace and goodness without giving Himself. There is no grace, there is no goodness, outside of Him. This means that if He has given you anything, He has also given you everything. All things are yours, whether things present or things to come. They are offered to you here, but because of the kind of friend that Jesus is, they are not offered to you piecemeal. They cannot be received piecemeal.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.